OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE 

BY 

GEORGE  H.  MAXWELL 


THE   FOURTH   BOOK 

OF 

THE  HOMECROFTERS 


RURAL  SETTLEMENTS  ASSOCIATION 
WASHINGTON  NEW  ORLEANS 

MABTLAND  BUILDING  COTTON  EXCHANGE  BUILDING 

1915 


Copyright,  1915, 
BY  RURAL  SETTLEMENTS  ASSOCIATION. 


THE  UNIVERSITY   PRESS,    CAMBRIDGE,   U.S.A. 


TO 
ALL   HOMECROFTERS 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DEDICATED 


"Peace  hath  her  victories 
No  less  renowned  than  war" 


345274 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

Ammunition  is  necessary  to  win  a  battle.  Where 
it  is  a  great  Battle  for  Peace,  to  be  fought  with 
pen  and  voice,  the  ammunition  needed  is  facts. 

Whenever  the  people  of  the  United  States  know 
the  facts  relating  to  the  subject  to  which  this 
book  is  devoted,  then  what  it  advocates  will  be  done. 
Much  fault  has  been  found  with  Congress  because 
of  the  country's  unpreparedness.  Congress  is  not 
at  fault.  "The  stream  cannot  rise  higher  than 
the  fountain."  The  will  of  the  people  is  the  law. 
The  people  of  this  nation  are  unalterably  opposed 
to  a  big  Standing  Army.  When  they  know  that 
the  safety  of  the  nation  can  be  assured  without 
either  the  cost  or  the  menace  of  militarism,  the 
people  will  demand  that  it  be  done,  and  Congress 
will  register  that  popular  decree,  gladly  and  will- 
ingly. It  is  not  at  all  surprising  that  Congress  does 
not  yield  to  the  clamor  of  the  militarists  when  they 
know  the  adverse  sentiment  of  the  people  on  that 
subject. 

President  Schurman  of  Cornell  recently  said: 

"It  would  be  self-deception  of  the  grossest  char- 
acter if  Americans  made  their  love  of  peace  the 
criterion  of  the  military  policy  and  preparedness 
of  their  country.  It  would  be  madness  to  enfeeble 
and  imperil  the  United  States  because  we  believe 
peace  the  chief  blessing  of  the  nations." 

All  that  is  true.  But  when  the  problem  is 
analyzed  there  is  no  other  way  that  can  be  devised, 
except  that  proposed  in  this  book,  that  will  safe- 
guard the  nation  against  foreign  attack  or  in- 
vasion, and  do  it  adequately,  without  incurring 


vi  PREFATORY  NOTE 

stupendous  cost  or  creating  a  menace  to  liberty. 
The  Americans  are  a  brave  people,  but  they  have  a 
hereditary  aversion  to  the  clank  of  a  saber  in  time 
of  peace. 

There  are  a  few  books  that  every  one  who  wishes 
to  master  the  subject  should  read.  First  among 
these  is  "Fields,  Factories  and  Workshops,"  by 
Prince  Kropotkin,  published  by  G.  P.  Putnam's 
Sons,  New  York.  A  new  edition  of  this  book  has 
been  recently  issued  which  costs  only  seventy-five 
cents. 

"The  Iron  in  the  Blood"  is  a  chapter  in  "The 
Coming  People,"  by  Charles  F.  Dole,  published  by 
T.  Y.  Crowell  &  Co.  of  New  York.  A  reprint  of 
this  book  can  be  had  for  twenty -five  cents  from  the 
Rural  Settlements  Association. 

"The  Secret  of  Nippon's  Power"  is  another 
pertinent  article,  in  "The  First  Book  of  the  Home- 
crofters."  A  new  and  enlarged  edition  of  this  book 
will  soon  be  issued.  In  the  meantime  copies  of  the 
first  edition  can  be  had  for  twenty-five  cents  from 
the  Rural  Settlements  Association. 

More  has  been  accomplished  in  Duluth,  Minne- 
sota, to  prove  the  benefits  of  the  Homecroft  Life 
than  in  any  other  City  in  the  United  States.  A 
special  publication,  descriptive  of  the  Homecroft 
Work  in  Duluth,  and  a  pamphlet  by  George  H. 
Maxwell  entitled,  "The  Cost  of  Living,"  which 
shows  the  relation  to  that  subject  of  the  Home- 
croft System  of  Education  and  Life,  can  be  ob- 
tained by  sending  ten  cents  in  stamps  to  the  Rural 
Settlements  Association,  Cotton  Exchange  Build- 
ing, New  Orleans,  La. 

The  legislative  machinery  necessary  to  inau- 
gurate the  plans  for  work  to  be  done  through  the 
Forest  Service  and  the  Reclamation  Service  is  all 
provided  for  in  the  Newlands-Broussard  River 
Regulation  Bill.  That  bill  provides  for  river  regu- 


PREFATORY  NOTE  vii 

lation,  flood  prevention,  land  reclamation  and 
settlement,  and  the  establishment  of  forest  planta- 
tions in  all  parts  of  the  United  States.  It  also 
brings  the  departments  of  the  national  govern- 
ment into  coordination  by  forming  the  Board  of 
River  Regulation.  Through  that  board,  all  neces- 
sary plans  would  be  worked  out  for  coordinating 
other  departments  with  the  War  Department, 
and  completing  the  organization  of  the  National 
Construction  Reserve  and  the  Homecroft  Reserve. 
When  perfected,  those  plans  would  be  presented 
to  Congress  with  a  recommendation  for  their 
enactment. 

Those  who  favor  the  plan  advocated  in  this 
book  are  urged  to  concentrate  their  influence  first 
on  the  passage  of  that  bill  as  the  entering-wedge 
to  the  ultimate  adoption  of  the  entire  plan.  They 
are  also  urged  to  do  all  in  their  power  to  enlist  the 
active  interest  of  their  friends  by  inducing  them  to 
study  the  subject  and  get  the  facts. 

Copies  of  the  Newlands-Broussard  River  Regula- 
tion Bill  and  explanatory  printed  matter  may  be 
had  without  charge  by  writing  to  the  National 
Reclamation  Association,  331  Maryland  Building, 
Washington,  D.  C. 

This  book,  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE  —  THE 
PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE,  has  been  published  by  the 
Rural  Settlements  Association.  The  price  of  the 
book  is  $1.25,  including  postage,  and  orders  for 
copies,  with  remittance  for  that  amount,  should 
be  sent  to  Rural  Settlements  Association,  Cotton 
Exchange  Building,  New  Orleans,  La. 

GEORGE  H.  MAXWELL,  Executive  Director t 
Rural  Settlements  Association, 
National  Reclamation  Association. 


FOREWORD 

Would  it  interest  you  to  know  that  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  having  first  blindfolded 
themselves  with  the  self-complacence  of  igno- 
rance, are  walking  along  the  crest  of  a  ridge 
with  a  precipice  on  one  side  falling  sheer  into 
the  abyss  of  devastation  by  war  with  an  invad- 
ing foreign  power,  while  on  the  other  side  boils 
the  seething  crater  of  a  social  volcano? 

You  will  be  convinced  of  that  fact,  if  you 
will  carefully  and  thoughtfully  read  this  book 
through  from  cover  to  cover;  and  you  will 
also  be  convinced  that  the  only  road  to  safety 
is  that  pointed  out  in  this  book. 

Would  you  not  feel  that  "  an  ounce  of  pre- 
vention is  worth  a  pound  of  cure  "  when  re- 
flecting on  the  ease  with  which  any  of  the 
Great  European  Powers  could  again  occupy 
and  burn  Washington,  as  it  was  burned  in 
1814,  and  capture  and  levy  an  enormous  in- 
demnity upon  New  York  ? 

Would  you  contemplate  with  indifference 
and  equanimity  the  annexation  of  the  Pacific 
Coast  of  the  United  States  to  Japan? 

Has  it  occurred  to  you  that,  unless  we  wake 
up,  mend  our  ways  and  change  our  national 
policy,  war  is  ultimately  as  inevitable  between 
the  United  States  and  Japan  as  it  has  been 
for  years  between  France  and  Germany? 

Would  it  interest  you  to  know  that  in  the  event 


x  FOREWORD 

of  such  a  war  the  Japanese  would  be  found 
fully  prepared,  while  we  are  utterly  unpre- 
pared; and  that  Japan  would,  within  ten  days, 
mobilize  an  army  in  California  large  enough 
to  insure  to  them  its  military  control;  and 
that  within  four  weeks  thereafter  they  would 
land  an  army  of  200,000  veteran  soldiers  on 
the  Pacific  coast? 

Would  it  interest  you  to  know  that  in  such 
an  emergency  our  navy  would  be  impotent 
to  check  this  occupation  and  invasion,  and 
that  our  so-called  but  now  confessedly  mis- 
named coast  defenses  would  be  about  as  much 
protection  as  a  large  load  of  alfalfa  hay;  and 
that  as  part  of  this  military  occupancy  by 
Japan  of  the  territory  lying  between  the 
Cascade  and  Sierra  Nevada  mountains  and 
the  Pacific  Ocean,  the  Japanese  would  dyna- 
mite every  railroad  tunnel,  destroy  the  Colo- 
rado River  railroad  bridges,  and  fortify  the 
mountain  passes;  and  that  the  recapture  of 
one  pass  by  the  United  States  would  be  a  more 
difficult  military  undertaking  for  us  than  was 
the  capture  of  Port  Arthur  or  Tsing-Tao  by 
the  Japanese? 

Would  it  interest  you  to  know  that  the  very 
real  danger  that  California,  Western  Oregon, 
and  Western  Washington  may  be  annexed  to 
Japan  and  a  thousand  miles  of  deserts  and 
inaccessible  mountain  ranges,  instead  of  the 
Pacific  Ocean,  separate  Japan  from  the  United 
States,  is  a  danger  that  exists  because  not 
one  in  ten  thousand  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  will  give  the  slightest  heed  to 


FOREWORD  xi 

this  question,  which  overshadows  in  impor- 
tance every  other  question  affecting  the  people 
of  the  United  States? 

Would  it  interest  you  to  know  that  there  is 
just  as  much,  and  more,  danger  that  the 
desolating  flames  of  war  may  sweep  over  and 
devastate  Gardenlands  in  America  as  there 
was  that  they  might  sweep  over  and  devastate 
Belgium?  You  doubtless  will  say,  "That  is 
impossible!"  You  would  have  said  the  same 
thing  a  year  ago  about  Belgium,  with  much 
more  of  assurance  and  positive  conviction. 

Would  it  interest  you  to  know  that  the  doing 
of  the  things  that  would  insure  peace  forever 
between  the  United  States  and  Japan,  as 
well  as  all  European  nations,  would  at  the 
same  time  end  all  danger  from  the  ravages  of 
destructive  floods,  stop  forest  fires,  perpetuate 
our  forest  resources,  preserve  the  forest  and 
woodland  cover  on  our  watersheds,  create  a 
great  national  system  of  inland  waterways, 
reclaim  every  reclaimable  acre  of  arid  or 
swamp  and  overflow  land  in  the  United  States, 
and  reduce  the  cost  of  living  by  doubling  the 
agricultural  production  of  this  country  within 
ten  years? 

Would  it  interest  you  to  know  that  the  doing 
of  the  same  things  would  end  child  labor,  end 
woman  labor  in  factories,  end  unemployment, 
end  the  whole  multitude  of  evil  and  vicious 
influences  that  are  degenerating  humanity 
and  deteriorating  the  race  in  the  congested 
cities  of  this  country,  and  safeguard  the  United 
States  against  the  internal  as  well  as  the  ex- 


xii  FOREWORD 

ternal  dangers  that  now  menace  its  future 
welfare? 

Would  it  interest  you  to  know  that  the  doing 
of  those  same  things  would  inaugurate  an 
era  of  business  prosperity,  based  on  human 
welfare  and  advancement,  instead  of  on 
human  exploitation,  and  would  insure  the 
perpetuity  of  that  prosperity? 

Would  it  interest  you  to  know  that  the  things 
which  it  is  proposed  shall  be  done  by  the 
United  States  have  already  been  done,  prac- 
tically and  successfully,  by  Switzerland,  Aus- 
tralia, and  New  Zealand;  and  that  they  can 
and  will  be  done  in  this  country  whenever 
the  people  wake  up  and  decide  to  do  some- 
thing for  themselves  instead  of  waiting  for 
somebody  else  to  do  it  for  them. 

If  you  doubt  any  of  the  foregoing  state- 
ments, read  the  book;  and  you  will  be  con- 
vinced of  their  absolute  truth  and  you  will 
be  appalled  at  the  magnitude  of  the  prevent- 
able calamity  that  menaces  the  people  of  the 
United  States  solely  because  of  their  heed- 
lessness,  indifference,  and  refusal  to  face 
facts. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER    I  PAQE 

SHALL  THERE  BE  AN  END  OF  WAR  ?..'..      1 

Question  may  be  answered  in  the  affirmative  by 
the  United  States' —  Facts  must  be'made  known  to 
the  people — Nationwide  educational  campaign  is 
necessary  —  Every  individual  must  be  aroused  to 
action  —  Appalling  consequences  of  triumph  of 
militarism  —  United  States  must  lead  the  world 
in  its  overthrow  —  Cannot  be  dependent  for  peace 
on  cooperation  of  other  nations  —  Appalling  losses 
may  result  from  public  apathy  and  indifference  — 
Necessity  for  national  policy  for  flood  prevention 

—  Naval  policy  is  out  of  balance  —  Other  things 
more  needed  than  battleships  —  Nationalization 
of  manufacture  of  armaments  and  battleships  — 
There  must  be  an  end  of  private  profit  from  such 
manufacture  —  It  inspires  militarism  and  stimu- 
lates war. 

CHAPTER  II 

INADEQUACY   OF  MILITARIST   PLANS   FOR 
NATIONAL  DEFENSE 24 

Militarists  believe  war  inevitable  —  Urge  United 
States  is  unprepared  —  Peace  Advocates  leave  to 
Militarists  all  plans  for  National  Defense  — 
Militarists  have  no  adequate  plan  —  Enormous 
cost  of  large  standing  army  —  Menace  of  a  military 
despotism  —  No  reliance  can  be  placed  on  State 
Militia  —  Impracticability  of  a  Reserve  composed 
of  men  who  have  served  in  the  Regular  Army  — 
War  must  be  recognized  as  a  possibility — Hypoc- 
risy of  opposition  to  war  by  those  who  profit  from 
so-called  civilized  warfare  —  Peace  Propaganda 
must  be  harmonized  with  national  defense — All 
plans  for  world  Peace  have  thus  far  proved  futile 

—  United  States  spends  enormous  sums  on  Army 
without  any  guarantee  of  national  defense  —  The 
Frankenstein  of  War  can  be  controlled. 


xiv  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  III 

IMPREGNABLE    DEFENSE    AGAINST    FOREIGN 
INVASION   ...............    44 

Plans  for  national  defense  must  primarily  operate 
to  prevent  war  —  Reasons  why  War  Department 
will  never  devise  Satisfactory  system  —  Militarists 
have  no  sympathy  with  peace  movement  —  It  aims 
to  render  military  profession  obsolete  —  Standing 
Army  is  economic  waste  of  money  and  men  —  It 
should  be  a  great  educational  institution  —  Chair- 
man Hay  of  Committee  on  Military  Affairs,  House 
of  Representatives,  shows  enormous  cost  of  Stand- 
ing Army  and  impracticability  of  Reserve  as  pro- 
posed by  Army  Officers  —  Comparison  of  Military 
Expenditures  and  Results  in  United  States  and 
Japan  —  Increase  of  Standing  Army  to  200,000 
would  be  futile  and  -mwarranted  —  European  War 
will  not  bring  disarmament  —  Warning  of  Field 
Marshal'  Earl  Roberts  —  Standing  Army  promotes 
military  spirit  which  increases  danger  of  war. 


CHAPTER  IV 
NATIONAL  CONSTRUCTION  RESERVE    ....    74 

Enlistment  of  Construction  Corps  in  government 
Services  in  time  of  peace  —  Transformation  of 
same  organization  into  military  force  in  time  of 
war  —  National  forces  must  be  organized  for  con- 
flict to  save,  not  destroy,  life  and  property  — 
Forest  Service  and  Reclamation  Service  work 
should  be  done  by  Reservists  enlisted  in  Con- 
struction Corps  —  Same  system  should  be  adopted 
in  all  government  services  —  Construction  Reserve 
to  be  so  trained  as  to  instantly  become  army  of 
trained  soldiers  whenever  needed  —  More  than 
work  enough  in  time  of  peace  for  a  million 
Reservists  —  planting  forests  —  fighting  forest  fires 
— preventing  floods — irrigating  deserts  —  draining 
swamps  —  building  highways,  waterways,  and  rail- 
ways —  Importance  of  safeguarding  nation  against 
destruction  by  Nature's  invading  forces. 


CONTENTS  xv 

CHAPTER  V  PAQE 

ADAPTABILITY  OF  SYSTEM  FOR  NATIONAL 
DEFENSE 115 

Swiss  Military  System  ideal  for  Switzerland  —  Not 
adapted  to  United  States  as  a  whole  —  Reserve  of 
wage  earners  impracticable  —  Their  mobilization 
would  cripple  industry  and  cause  privation  for 
families  —  City  clerks  and  factory  workers  lack 
physical  stamina  —  A  citizen  soldiery  needed  of 
hardy  men  like  founders  of  this  nation — Anglo- 
Saxon  stock  is  deteriorating  in  cities  —  Only 
remedy  is  Homecrofts  for  workingmen  and  their 
families  —  Otherwise  Industry  will  destroy 
Humanity  —  Greatest  danger  to  the  City  of 
New  York  is  from  within  —  Racial  degeneracy  is 
most  serious  menace  —  Patrician  class  warned 
against  Roman  System  which  resulted  in  Proscrip- 
tion and  Confiscation  —  The  spirit  of  Switzerland 
should  sway  the  world  —  Inadequate  Standing 
Army  a  serious  danger  —  Invites  attack  against 
which  it  cannot  defend  —  United  States  Standing 
Army  gives  no  assurance  of  national  safety. 

CHAPTER  VI 

MENACE    OF   ASIATIC    COMPETITION    AND 
INVASION 135 

Japanese  influx  into  Hawaii  and  Pacific  Coast 
States  —  Unexpected  incident  like  blowing  up  of 
Maine  might  precipitate  conflict  —  In  that  event 
peace  advocates  and  governments  might  be  power- 
less to  prevent  war  —  Japanese  merit  the  good  will 
of  other  nations — Reasons  why  they  come  to  Pacific 
Coast  — Japan  is  overpopulated  —  80,000,000  rural 
people  on  12,500,000  acres  —  Population  increasing 
1,000,000  annually  —  More  Japanese  in  California 
of  military  age  than  entire  Army  of  United  States 

—  Japanese  in  South  America  and  Mexico — United 
States  must  meet  economic  competition  of  Japan 

—  Pacific  Coast  must  be  settled  with  Caucasian 
population  that  will  cultivate  the  soil  as  Japanese 
would  cultivate  it   if  it  were  their  country  — 
Otherwise  armed  conflict  with  Japan  inevitable. 


xvi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER    VII 

JAPAN  AND  THE  COLORADO  RIVER  VALLEY  .  176 

Another  Japanese  Empire  could  be  created  in  the 
Drainage  Basin  of  the  Colorado  River  —  What 
Japanese  would  do  with  that  country  if  it  were 
Japanese  Territory  —  We  waste  annually  water 
containing  357,490,000  tons  of  fertilizing  mate- 
rial —  5,000,000  acres  can  be  reclaimed  between 
Needles  and  Mexico  —  Every  acre  would  support 
a  family  —  Climate  makes  ^gardening  equivalent 
to  hot  house  culture  out  of  doors  —  Inexhaustible 
supplies  of  nitrogen,  phosphates,  and  potash  for 
fertilizer  —  Enormous  possibilities  of  electric  power 
development — Japan  would  fight  the  Desert  and 
Conquest  it  with  same  thoroughness  that  she 
fought  Russia  —  Would  develop  vast  Commerce 
from  Colorado  River  and  Gulf  of  California  — 
Japanese  Colonization  in  Mexico  —  Spirit  of  Spec- 
ulation retards  development  by  United  States  — 
What  should  be  done  with  the  Colorado  River 
Valley  —  United  States  must  reclaim  and  colonize 
that  country  the  same  as  Japanese  would  do  if  it 
belonged  to  them. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
STRENGTH  OF  A  HOMECROFT  RESERVE    .  .    .  213 

A  Homecroft  Reserve  in  Scotland  of  one  million 
Soldiers  would  have  prevented  this  last  great  war 
—  Scotch  Homecrofters  make  such  Soldiers  as  the 
Gordon  Highlanders  and  the  Black  Watch  —  Story 
of  the  Gordon  Highlanders  —  The  Scots  were  the 
original  Homecrofters  —  The  description  in  "Raid- 
erland  "  of  the  Homecrof ts  in  Galloway — Grasping 
greed  of  intrenched  interests  drove  the  Homecroft- 
ers from  Scotland  —  Same  interests  now  blocking 
development  in  United  States  —  Homecroft  Sys- 
tem of  Education  and  Life  would  breed  a  race  of 
stalwart  soldiers  in  United  States  —  Could  leave 
home  for  actual  service  without  disturbing  indus- 
trial conditions  —  Homecrofters  would  be  concen- 


CONTENTS  xvii 

PAQK 

trated  for  training  and  organization  —  Would 
eliminate  all  danger  of  militarism  or  military  des- 
potism —  Comparison  in  value  of  1,000,000  trained 
Homecrof ters  with  1,000,000  immigrants  —  Home- 
croft  Reserve  System  will  end  child  labor  and 
woman  labor  in  factories  and  will  also  end  unem- 
ployment. 

CHAPTER  IX 

HOMECROFT   RESERVE   IN   COLORADO   RIVER 
VALLEY 247 

United  States  owns  land,  water,  and  power  —  De- 
velopment by  national  government  would  result 
in  vast  profit  to  it  —  Australian  System  of  Land 
Reclamation  and  Settlement  should  be  adopted — 
Action  should  be  prompt  to  forestall  friction  be- 
tween United  States  and  Japan  —  Will  never  have 
war  with  Japan  except  as  result  of  apathy  and 
neglect  —  United  States  must  create  in  Colorado 
River  Valley  dense  population  settled  in  self-sus- 
taining Communities  —  Characteristics  of  Country 
peculiarly  adapt  it  to  requirements  for  Homecroft 
Reserve  —  Safety  of  Southern  California  from  in- 
vasion would  be  insured  —  Military  Highways  to 
San  Diego  and  Los  Angeles  —  Defense  of  Mexican 
Border  —  Homecroft  Cavalry  Reserve  in  Nevada 
similar  to  Cossack  Cavalry  System  —  Correction 
of  Mexican  Boundary  Line  to  include  mouth  of 
Colorado  River  in  the  United  States  — New  State 
of  South  California  to  be  formed. 


CHAPTER  X 


CALIFORNIA  A  REMOTE  INSULAR  PROVINCE  .  277 

More  easily  accessible  from  Japan  by  sea  than 
from  United  States  by  land,  in  case  of  war  — 
Mountain  Ranges  bound  it  north,  east,  and  south 
—  All  plans  for  defense  of  California  with  a  Navy 
or  coast  fortifications  are  futile  and  a  delusion  — 
Bombardment  of  English  towns  and  comparison 


xviii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

of  English  Coast  and  California  Coast  —  Japan 
would,  if  war  were  declared,  seize  Alaska,  Philip- 
pines, and  Hawaii  —  Would  then  transport  an 
army  of  200,000  to  California  —  Railroad  tunnels 
and  bridges  being  destroyed  by  dynamite  would 
render  relief  by  United  States  impossible  —  Re- 
liance on  Panama  Canal  too  uncertain  —  Quick- 
ness with  which  occupation  of  California  would  be 
accomplished  by  Japanese  —  Huge  military  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  of  United  States  reconquering 
it  —  Mountain  passes  would  be  fortified  by  Japan- 
ese —  Railroad  bridges,  culverts,  and  tunnels  across 
deserts  would  be  dynamited  —  To  recapture  a 
single  mountain  pass  more  difficult  than  capture  of 
Port  Arthur  —  Death  and  Desolation  are  Supreme 
in  the  Southwestern  Deserts  —  Japanese  would 
rapidly  colonize  all  vacant  lands  in  California  — 
The  way  to  make  the  Pacific  Coast  safe  is  for  the 
United  States  to  colonize  it  first  with  a  dense 
population  of  intensive  cultivators  of  the  soil. 


CHAPTER  XI 


MILITARISM  AND  THE  MISSISSIPPI  VALLEY    .  301 

Military  caste  absorbs  to  itself  undue  power  — 
Danger  seen  in  military  opposition  to  improved 
system  for  river  regulation  —  Military  control  of 
inland  waterways  detrimental  to  country  —  Army 
Engineers  wedded  to  System  of  "Pork  Barrel," 
political,  piecemeal  appropriations  —  Reason  why 
Army  methods  of  education  hamper  progress  in 
river  improvement  —  Mississippi  River  requires 
comprehensive  treatment  —  Necessity  for  Source 
Stream  Control  on  all  upper  tributaries — Why  the 
Calaveras  Reservoir  was  not  built  —  Blunder  in 
Construction  of  Stockton  Cutoff  Canal  —  War  may 
be  uncertain,  but  necessity  for  fight  against  floods 
and  storms  is  certain  —  Description  of  a  great  Gulf 
Storm  —  Comprehensive  plan  for  protecting  lower 
delta  of  Mississippi  River  by  great  Dikes  like  those 
in  Holland — Safety  from  floods  guaranteed  by 
construction  of  Atchafalaya  Controlled  Outlet, 
Wasteway,  and  Auxiliary  flood  water  channels. 


CONTENTS  xix 

CHAPTER  XII 

PAOB 

BENEFITS  FROM  THE  NATIONAL  HOMECROFT 
RESERVE  SYSTEM 335 

What  this  generation  would  bequeath  to  future 
generations  —  United  States  safeguarded  against 
internal  dangers  and  made  impregnable  against 
attack  or  invasion  —  No  other  plan  will  accomplish 
that  result  —  Summary  of  reasons  why  Home- 
croft  Reserve  System  will  accomplish  it  —  Com- 
parison of  cost  of  larger  Standing  Army  and  same 
number  of  Homecroft  Reserve  —  Epitome  of  ad- 
vantages of  a  Homecroft  Reserve  from  the  stand- 
point of  Peace  —  Homecroft  Reserve  System  must 
be  evolved  gradually  —  Rapid  development  would 
follow  when  system  once  well  established — This 
is  illustrated  by  growth  of  Rural  Mail  service. 
Electric  lighting,  aerial  navigation,  and  telephone 
—  Where  the  first  100,000  Homecroft  Reservists 
should  be  located — 50,000  Reservists  in  California, 
20,000  in  Louisiana,  20,000  in  West  Virginia,  and 
10,000  in  Minnesota  —  Specification  of  apportion- 
ment to  projects  of  the  $100,000,000  that  would 
be  saved  from  military  expenditures  for  increased 
Standing  Army — Homecroft  financial  System  pro- 
posed—  Homecroft  Certificates  to  be  issued  — 
Advantages  of  the  Homecroft  Reserve  System  to 
the  Homecrofter — Economic  power  created  for 
the  Nation  would  result  in  Universal  Peace. 


OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE 

CHAPTER  I 

&HALL  there  be  an  end  of  war,  and  of  all 
danger  or  possibility  of  war  in  the  future, 
not  only  in  this,  but  in  all  other  countries, 
and  shall  we  have  universal  peace  on  earth 
through  all  the  coming  centuries? 

That  is  the  most  momentous  question 
that  has  ever  confronted  any  nation  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  The  United  States 
of  America  stands  face  to  face  with  it  to- 
day, and  can  answer  the  question  in  the 
affirmative,  if  the  people  of  this  country  so 
determine. 

On  their  decision  depends,  not  only  the 
safety  and  perpetuity  of  this  nation,  and 
the  welfare  of  our  own  people,  but  the 
welfare  of  all  the  other  nations  and  peoples 
of  the  earth  as  well,  through  all  future 
time. 

The  question  will  have  been  answered  in 
the  affirmative  whenever  the  plan  proposed 


2  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

in  this  book  shall  have  been  adopted  by  the 
people  of  the  United  States. 

Its  adoption  will  strengthen  every  plan 
that  can  be  devised  to  prevent  war. 

It  will  vitalize  the  influence  of  this 
nation  in  behalf  of  peace. 

It  will  make  the  nation  impregnable  in 
case  of  war,  if,  notwithstanding  all  efforts 
to  prevent  it,  war  should  come. 

In  the  great  crisis  through  which  civi- 
lization is  now  passing,  the  United  States 
alone  has  the  opportunity  and  the  power 
to  emancipate  humanity  from  militarism, 
and  prevent  it  from  ever  again  being 
drawn  into  the  maelstrom  of  war.  Unless 
that  is  done,  liberty,  the  world  over,  will 
be  slowly  submerged  by  the  subtle  and  in- 
sidious growth  of  military  power  in  the 
affairs  of  government,  and  our  present 
civilization  will  ultimately  go  the  way  of 
all  the  civilizations  of  the  past. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  this  country  rises 
to  the  opportunity,  and  provides  a  system 
of  national  defense  which  will  not  only 
safeguard  the  nation  against  foreign  in- 
vasion or  internal  conflict,  but  will  also  at 
the  same  time  promote  human  advance- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE  3 

ment,  insure  all  the  blessings  of  peace  to 
the  people,  and  check  the  growth  of  mili- 
tarism, we  will  establish  a  civilization  that 
will  endure  as  long  as  the  human  race  can 
inhabit  the  earth. 

The  first  thing  that  must  be  done  to 
achieve  that  boon  for  humanity  is  to  arouse 
the  people  of  the  United  States  to  a  reali- 
zation of  the  fact  that  the  settlement  of 
this  great  question  cannot  be  left  by  any- 
one to  somebody  else. 

Every  man  and  every  woman,  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  must  enlist 
in  a  great  national  campaign  of  education 
to  get  the  real  facts  and  all  the  facts  into 
the  minds  of  the  people. 

"As  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart,  so 
is  he." 

This  is  a  government,  not  so  much  by 
the  people  as  by  the  thought  of  the  people. 

Right  thought  must  precede  right  ac- 
tion. Knowledge  must  go  before  right 
thought.  The  people  cannot  think  right 
until  they  know  the  facts,  and  they  must 
study  and  understand  and  analyze  those 
facts  and  face  them  squarely. 

That  can  be  brought  about  only  by  a 


4  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

nation-wide  campaign  in  which  every 
patriotic  citizen  must  participate.  Each 
must  first  learn  the  facts  himself  and  then 
carry  the  knowledge  to  others  —  drive  it 
home  to  them  and  stir  them  to  action. 

To  every  reader  of  this  book  let  it  be 
said,  as  a  personal  message: 

When  you  have  read  this  book,  do 
not  lay  it  down  with  the  thought: 

"Yes,  that  is  a  good  idea.  I  hope  some- 
body will  succeed  in  getting  it  done." 

Buckle  on  your  own  armor  and  hel- 
met, lift  up  your  own  sword  and  shield, 
and  go  right  out  into  your  own  community 
and  make  converts  yourself,  who  are  will- 
ing not  only  to  think  but  to  act  and  to 
do  things  themselves,  to  lift  the  deepening 
shadow  of  militarism  from  this  nation, 
and  rescue  the  world  from  the  barbarism 
of  war. 

The  souls  of  the  people  must  be  set  on 
fire  to  fight  a  great  battle  for  peace  and  to 
save  the  ideals  and  traditions  of  our  fore- 
fathers from  being  submerged  under  the 
rising  tide  of  militarism. 

That  battle  must  be  fought  with  voice 
and  pen  against  ignorance,  indifference, 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE          5 

and  every  powerful  interest  intrenched  in 
selfish  opposition  to  human  advancement. 

Popular  interest  must  be  stirred  to  its 
depths  to  create  an  irresistible  wave  of 
public  sentiment  that  will  sweep  away  all 
opposition  to  the  necessary  expenditures 
and  legislation. 

Every  man  who  would  be  willing  to  serve 
his  country  in  time  of  war  must  be  en- 
listed to  serve  it  in  time  of  peace,  by 
fighting  in  advance  of  war  to  safeguard 
against  it  and  ultimately  end  it  forever. 

Every  woman  who  wants  the  menace  of 
war  lifted  from  the  lives  of  the  women  of 
the  world  must  show  the  faith  that  is  in 
her  by  putting  her  whole  heart  and  soul 
into  the  work  of  enlisting  her  own  com- 
munity in  this  great  movement  to  do 
away  with  war,  and  to  save  the  women 
of  the  future  from  the  inhuman  cruelties 
and  heart-breaking  agonies  that  war  has 
brought  upon  them  in  the  past. 

The  people  of  this  country  must  stub- 
bornly stand  their  ground  to  check  the 
future  advance  of  militarism  in  the  United 
States.  For  years  it  has  been  stealthily 
gaining,  while  the  people  at  large  have 


6  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

paid  no  heed.  Military  expenditures 
have  grown  larger  and  larger  —  they  have 
trebled  within  a  generation  —  and  the 
people  have  voiced  no  vigorous  protest. 
They  have  been  "asleep  at  the  switch." 

There  must  be  an  end  of  this  indifference 
of  the  majority  of  the  people,  who  have 
been  selfishly  and  self-complacently  at- 
tending to  their  own  affairs  while  the  world 
has  been  drifting  into  a  bloody  welter  of 
war.  It  is  only  by  chance  that  the  United 
States  has  not  already  been  drawn  into 
it.  Complications  may  at  any  time  arise 
which  will  involve  this  nation  in  war. 

An  interest  must  be  awakened  as  tense 
and  vivid  and  all-compelling  as  would  be 
instantly  aroused  by  an  actual  invasion  of 
the  United  States  by  a  foreign  enemy, 
and  it  must  be  awakened  far  in  advance 
of  that  invasion,  to  make  sure  that  it 
never  happens. 

For  nearly  two  thousand  years  the 
gentle  admonition  "On  earth  Peace,  Good 
Will  toward  men"  has  been  the  ideal 
which  the  human  race  has  been  struggling 
to  attain. 

And  after  all  these  centuries  we  are  in 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE          7 

the  midst  of  the  most  bloody  and  destruc- 
tive war  the  world  has  ever  known. 

Civilization  has  crashed  backwards  into 
the  abyss  of  barbarism,  in  Europe  at 
least,  and  no  one  can  foresee  the  end. 

In  the  United  States  the  trend  is  in  the 
same  direction.  This  country  will  soon 
become  a  great  military  nation  if  the 
present  tendency  is  not  sharply  checked. 

Mere  ignorance  and  indifference  on  the 
part  of  the  people  of  the  United  States 
must  not  be  allowed  to  stand  in  the  way  of 
the  adoption  of  the  national  policy  advo- 
cated in  this  book  —  a  policy  that  will 
bring  permanent  and  enduring  universal 
peace  to  the  world. 

That  policy  must  be  adopted.  There 
can  be  no  alternative.  The  final  triumph 
of  militarism  would  be  too  appalling  to 
contemplate. 

Must  every  woman  who  bears  a  son  live 
under  the  terror  that  she  may  have  to 
dedicate  him  to  be  mangled  in  the  service 
of  the  War  God? 

Must  every  home  remain  liable  to  be 
ruined  and  destroyed  by  the  fires  of 
war? 


8  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

Must  every  fair  and  beautiful  garden- 
land  continue  to  be  subject  to  the  menace 
of  devastation  by  marching  armies  or  the 
bloody  ruin  of  the  battlefields? 

Must  the  flower  of  the  world's  manhood 
continue  to  be  flung  into  the  jaws  of  death 
to  satiate  the  blood  lust  of  militarism? 

Must  the  wheels  of  industry  turn,  and 
the  sweat  of  human  labor,  for  all  time,  be 
given  to  make  machinery  for  human 
slaughter? 

Is  there  no  inspiration  to  patriotism 
that  will  move  the  people  to  action  but 
the  death  combat? 

Is  there  no  glory  to  be  won,  that  will 
stir  heart  and  brain  to  supreme  effort, 
except  by  causing  human  agony  and  dev- 
astation? 

Is  there  nothing  else  that  will  bring  out 
the  best  there  is  in  men  but  the  stimulus 
of  war,  and  its  demands  for  sacrifice,  even 
of  life  itself? 

Is  there  no  higher  service  to  their  coun- 
try to  which  women  can  give  their  men 
than  to  die  fighting  to  kill  the  men  of 
other  women? 

Must  this  nation,  as  well  as  others,  so 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE          9 

impoverish  itself  by  war  and  preparation 
for  war  that  nothing  is  left  to  pay  for  pro- 
tecting itself  against  Nature's  destroying 
forces,  flood  and  fire  and  waste  of  the 
country's  basic  resources? 

The  intelligent  and  patriotic  men  and 
women  of  the  United  States  would  answer 
every  one  of  these  questions,  with  all  the 
fervor  of  their  being,  in  the  way  they  must 
be  answered  to  save  civilization,  if  the 
questions  could  be  put  to  them,  face  to 
face,  by  anyone  who  was  ready  to  show 
them  what  to  do  to  make  good  that 
answer  and  transform  the  desire  into  ac- 
tual accomplishment. 

We  must  therefore  arm  the  multitude 
with  the  facts  and  burn  into  their  minds 
the  clear-cut  definite  vision  of  the  plan 
that  must  be  carried  out  to  make  certain 
that  accomplishment. 

That  plan  must  provide  that  we  shall 
first  do  the  things  which  the  people  of 
this  country  can  do  by  themselves  alone 
without  saying  "by  your  leave"  or  "with 
your  help"  to  any  other  nation. 

The  influence  of  the  adoption  of  a  right 
national  policy  by  the  United  States  will 


10  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

draw  the  world  into  the  current  as  soon  as 
its  practicability  and  benefits  to  humanity 
have  been  proved,  but  we  must  not  begin 
with  a  plan  that  will  fail  unless  adopted 
by  all  the  great  powers  of  the  world. 

We  cannot  allow  the  success  of  our  own 
basic  plan  for  peace,  and  for  safeguarding 
this  nation  against  war,  to  depend  on  the 
cooperation  of  any  other  nation. 

That  has  been  the  difficulty  with  nearly 
every  plan  heretofore  proposed  for  the 
permanent  establishment  of  peace  through- 
out the  world.  The  agreement  of  all  the 
nations  could  not  be  had,  and  without 
such  agreement  the  plan  was  futile. 

Disarmament  or  the  limitation  of  ar- 
maments is  impracticable  without  the 
consent  of  all  the  great  powers. 

Nationalization  of  the  manufacture  of 
armaments,  if  it  is  to  be  a  world-wide 
influence,  must  have  world-wide  adoption. 

No  plan  for  a  peace  tribunal  can  be 
successfully  made  effective  without  all 
nations  agreeing  to  abide  by  its  decrees. 

And  then  it  will  fail  unless  given  power 
to  enforce  those  decrees. 

That  power  will  never  be  vested  in  it 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE         11 

by  the  nations,  not  in  this  generation  at 
least. 

All  plans  for  arbitration  rest  on  the  same 
insecure  foundation. 

Arbitration  voluntarily  of  any  one  con- 
troversy between  nations  is  practicable, 
where  consent  is  expressly  given  to  arbi- 
trate that  particular  controversy. 

But  a  general  plan  based  on  an  agree- 
ment made  in  advance  to  arbitrate  all 
future  unknown  controversies  would  be 
unenforceable  and  would  afford  no  as- 
surance of  peace. 

The  plan  for  an  international  force, 
either  army  or  navy,  is  too  remote  a  possi- 
bility to  be  depended  on  now  for  prac- 
tical results. 

Agitation  of  these  projects  is  commend- 
able and  should  be  encouraged,  but  we 
cannot  wait  for  their  adoption  to  set  our 
own  house  in  order  and  insure  its  safety. 

In  framing  a  national  policy  of  peace  for 
the  United  States,  we  must  constantly 
and  clearly  draw  the  line  of  distinction 
between  the  deep-seated  original  causes  of 
war,  and  causes  which  are  secondary,  or 
merely  precipitating  incidents. 


12  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

The  assassination  of  the  Austrian  Arch- 
duke in  Sarajevo  precipitated  the  present 
war,  but  it  was  not  the  cause  of  the  war. 

Fundamentally,  that  cause  was  the 
check  imposed  by  other  nations  on  the 
expansion  of  the  German  Empire.  The 
necessity  for  that  expansion  resulted  from 
the  rapid  increase  in  the  population,  trade, 
and  national  wealth  of  Germany. 

The  same  problem  faces  the  United 
States  with  reference  to  Japan  and  we 
cannot  evade  it  by  any  scheme  for  ar- 
bitration or  disarmament.  We  must 
squarely  face  and  solve  the  economic 
problems  that  lie  at  the  bottom  of  all 
possible  conflict  between  this  nation  and 
Japan. 

A  lighted  match  may  be  thrown  into  a 
keg  of  gunpowder  and  an  explosion  re- 
sult. It  might  be  said  that  the  match 
caused  the  explosion.  In  one  sense  it  did 
—  but  it  was  not  the  match  that  exploded. 

And  gunpowder  must  be  protected 
against  matches,  if  explosions  are  to  be 
avoided.  So  with  national  controversies. 
The  economic  causes  must  be  controlled, 
and  conflict  avoided  by  action  taken 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE         13 

long  in  advance  of  a  condition  of  actual 
controversy. 

In  our  dealings  with  Japan,  as  will  be 
shown  hereafter,  we  are  sitting  on  an  open 
keg  of  gunpowder,  lighting  matches  ap- 
parently without  the  remotest  idea  of  the 
danger,  or  of  the  way  to  eliminate  it. 

But  the  situation  on  the  Pacific  Coast 
with  reference  to  Japan  is  not  the  first 
instance  of  similar  risks  that  have  been 
run  with  most  appalling  losses  as  a  con- 
sequence. 

The  danger  of  an  earthquake  in  San 
Francisco  was  known  to  everybody.  Like- 
wise it  must  have  been  known,  if  the 
slightest  thought  had  been  given  to  it, 
that  an  earthquake  might  disrupt  the 
water  system  of  the  city  and  make  it  im- 
possible to  quench  a  fire  that  might  be 
started  by  an  earthquake. 

As  San  Francisco  is  now  heedless  of  the 
need  for  a  policy  that  will  really  settle  the 
Japanese  trouble,  instead  of  aggravating 
it,  so  she  was  heedless  of  the  earthquake 
danger.  That  heedlessness  cost  the  city 
$300,000,000  in  entirely  unnecessary  dam- 
age caused  by  fire.  San  Francisco  was 


14  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

destroyed  by  fire,  not  by  the  earthquake. 
The  earthquake  was  unavoidable.  The 
fire  was  wholly  preventable. 

That  sort  of  heedlessness  is  typical  of 
the  American  people.  Busy  with  the 
present,  they  take  no  thought  of  the  fu- 
ture. Every  city  in  the  United  States 
which  is  liable  in  any  year  to  a  great  flood, 
is  equally  liable  to  a  great  fire  —  a  fire 
which  might  as  completely  destroy  it  as 
the  San  Francisco  fire  destroyed  that  city, 
because,  owing  to  the  flood,  all  the 
means  provided  for  fire  protection  when 
there  is  no  flood,  would  be  rendered  useless 
by  the  flood. 

Yet  every  such  flood-menaced  city  in 
the  United  States  stolidly  runs  the  risk. 
No  general  precautions  are  taken  to  pre- 
vent such  destruction,  though  it  must  be 
recognized  as  being  possible  at  any  time. 
Great  floods  will  rarely  follow  one  another 
in  the  same  place.  For  this  reason,  flood 
protection  for  a  city  which  has  already 
suffered  from  a  disastrous  flood,  like  Day- 
ton, is  no  more  important  than  similar 
protection  for  all  other  flood-menaced 
cities.  The  only  way  to  safeguard  against 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE         15 

floods,  and  the  consequent  risk  of  fire 
losses  in  flood-menaced  cities,  is  that  all 
such  cities  should  be  completely  protected 
against  floods,  under  a  nation-wide  policy 
for  flood  protection  and  prevention. 

When  appeal  is  made  to  Congress  for 
legislation  providing  for  such  a  policy  and 
for  the  appropriations  necessary  to  make 
it  effective,  we  are  told  that  so  much 
money  is  required  for  military  expendi- 
tures that  none  can  be  spared  for  protec- 
tion against  floods. 

Are  we  to  go  on  for  the  next  ten  years 
doing  as  we  have  'done  in  the  last  ten, 
and  spend  another  billion  dollars  for  the 
army  and  fortifications,  while  floods  rav- 
age unchecked? 

If  we  had  been  getting  actual  protec- 
tion from  foreign  invasion  for  that  billion 
dollars,  there  might  have  been  some 
justification  for  its  expenditure;  but  we 
are  getting  neither  protection  from  foreign 
invasion  nor  protection  from  flood  in- 
vasion. 

The  fact  that  the  people  of  the  country 
at  large  give  no  heed  whatever  to  the 
risk  of  tremendous  losses  of  life  and  prop- 


16  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

erty  by  flood,  arises  from  a  fixed  habit  of 
apathetic  indifference,  and  the  fact  that  no 
commercial  interest  pushes  steadily  in 
behalf  of  flood  protection. 

There  is  money  to  be  made,  and  large 
dividends  may  be  earned,  by  furnishing 
insurance  against  fire.  Consequently  the 
owner  of  every  building  in  every  city  is 
constantly  reminded  by  insurance  agents 
of  the  importance  and  necessity  of  fire 
insurance.  This  has  been  done  until  public 
education,  stimulated  by  private  profit, 
has  created  a  habit  of  thought  which  in- 
stinctively recognizes  the  danger  of  fire, 
and  insures  against  it.  The  property 
owner  who  now  fails  to  carry  fire  insurance 
is  commonly  regarded  as  assuming  an  un- 
warranted risk. 

The  same  conditions  exist  from  a  na- 
tional point  of  view  with  reference  to  war. 
We  build  battleships,  for  example,  largely 
because  there  is  a  huge  private  profit  made 
therefrom,  which  warrants  a  nation-wide 
propaganda  to  educate  and  sustain  a 
favorable  public  sentiment.  The  profit  is 
large  enough  to  permit  of  propitiating 
troublesome  opposition  by  endowing  peace 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        17 

palaces.  That  is  a  gruesome  and  ghastly 
hypocrisy  that  must  come  to  an  end,  if  the 
world  is  ever  to  attain  to  universal  peace. 

The  government  should,  if  it  needs 
them,  build  its  own  battleships;  but  the 
first  thing  it  should  do,  before  it  builds 
any  more  battleships,  is  to  provide  for  its 
other  more  pressing  naval  requirements, 
such  as  trained  men,  target  practice, 
transports,  coaling  stations  with  adequate 
coal  supplies,  swift  cruisers,  torpedo  boats, 
submarines,  aeroplanes,  and  ammunition. 

After  that  has  all  been  done,  if  it  is  made 
the  law  of  the  land  that  dividends  shall 
no  longer  be  earned  by  private  corpora- 
tions from  building  battleships  or  from 
manufacturing  armor  plate,  it  might  be 
found  that  no  more  battleships  ought  to 
be  built.  By  that  time  naval  experts  may 
have  agreed  that,  as  against  torpedoes  and 
aeroplanes,  battleships  are  too  uncertain 
a  defense,  and  may  have  decided  that 
we  need  something  else. 

A  battleship  costs  anywhere  from  ten 
to  fifteen  million  dollars,  and  they  are 
too  expensive  to  be  built  for  experiment 
or  ornament. 


18  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

The  people  of  the  United  States  have 
been  relying  on  battleships  for  coast  de- 
fense, but  all  Britain's  battleships  did 
not  protect  Scarborough  or  Hartlepool  or 
Whitby.  Neither  have  the  battleships 
been  able  to  protect  themselves  from  tor- 
pedoes, mines,  or  submarines. 

Congress  is  a  mirror.  It  merely  reflects 
public  sentiment.  So  long  as  the  need  for 
battleships  and  more  battleships  —  for 
bigger  and  still  bigger  battleships  —  is  con- 
stantly dinged  into  the  ears  of  the  people 
by  the  profit-takers  from  the  government, 
just  that  long  will  public  sentiment,  and 
the  legislation  and  appropriations  that 
respond  to  it,  be  warped  and  one  sided. 
Our  navy  will  continue  to  be  top  heavy 
with  dreadnoughts,  and  inadequate  at- 
tention will  be  paid  to  the  other  things 
necessary  for  a  symmetrically  equipped 
and  efficient  naval  defense. 

When  private  profits  for  building  battle- 
ships shall  have  been  eliminated,  Con- 
gress will  no  longer  skimp  appropriations 
to  man  the  battleships  we  now  have,  or 
for  other  naval  equipment,  in  order  to 
build  more  dreadnoughts. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        19 

After  this  war,  it  ought  to  be  possible 
to  conduct  to  success  a  nation-wide,  and 
possibly  a  world-wide  propaganda  to  end 
forever  the  earning  of  dividends  from  hu- 
man slaughter. 

That  is  the  issue,  bluntly  and  plainly 
stated,  and  those  who  profit  by  manufac- 
turing the  machinery  of  war  must  face 
it  squarely.  The  time  will  come,  —  it  is 
to  be  hoped  it  is  near  at  hand,  —  when 
they  will  be  held  in  the  same  estimation 
as  are  nowadays  the  pirates  who  forced 
their  victims  to  walk  the  plank. 

Over-preparedness,  as  well  as  unpre- 
paredness,  may  precipitate  a  war.  The 
causes  of  the  present  European  war  were, 
however,  more  deeply  rooted  than  that. 
It  was  inevitable  that  they  would  some 
day  result  in  war.  But  the  war  would 
not  have  come  at  this  time  if  Germany  had 
not  thought  England  unprepared.  Nor 
would  it  have  come  if  Germany  had  not 
been,  as  she  supposed,  invincible,  because 
armed  to  the  teeth  by  corporations  like 
the  Krupps  that  make  war  and  the  ma- 
chinery for  it  the  source  of  stupendous 
private  profits  and  accumulated  wealth. 


20  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

The  growing  temptation  to  create  simi- 
lar conditions  in  this  country  must  be  for- 
ever strangled.  After  the  close  of  this 
war,  the  fields  of  battle  in  Europe  must  be 
cleared  of  war's  devastations,  and  in  the 
United  States  of  America  the  field  of  in- 
dustry must  be  cleared  of  all  temptation 
for  our  merchants  and  manufacturers  to 
become  slaughterers  by  wholesale  of  hu- 
man beings  —  murderers  and  manglers  of 
whole  battalions  of  their  fellowmen  — 
slayers  of  the  fathers,  brothers,  husbands, 
and  sons  of  millions  of  women.  That  is 
what  they  become  when  for  money  they 
furnish  the  means  whereby  it  is  done,  or 
is  to  be  in  future  done,  by  this  or  any 
other  country. 

It  is  far  better  that  capital  should  be 
idle  and  labor  unemployed  than  that  either 
should  be  used  to  promote  death  and  dev- 
astation in  return  for  dividends  or  wages. 
All  available  capital  and  labor  can  find 
occupation  in  doing  things  that  will  pro- 
mote human  welfare.  To  the  extent  that 
the  machinery  of  war  may  be  needed  by 
any  government,  it  should  be  manufac- 
tured for  its  own  use  by  that  government, 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        21 

and  never  by  any  private  concern  or  cor- 
poration for  profit.  A  world  movement  to 
that  end  is  being  organized  and  every  A 
patriotic  citizen  should  bear  a  hand  to 
promote  its  success.  The  United  States 
has  the  opportunity  to  be  the  first  nation 
to  adopt  this  advanced  and  peace-pro- 
moting national  policy. 

Whenever  we  have  put  an  end  to  the 
making  of  private  profit  from  the  manu- 
facture of  battleships  and  machinery  of 
war  for  our  government,  we  will  be  relieved 
of  much  of  the  persistent  pressure  to  make 
our  navy  top  heavy  with  dreadnoughts, 
and  to  steadily  increase  our  naval  and  mili- 
tary expenditures.  More  than  that,  we 
will  then  be  able  to  get  full,  fair,  and  un- 
prejudiced consideration,  by  the  people  at 
large,  of  every  question  relating  to  war 
or  peace,  or  to  our  own  preparedness  for 
war,  or  the  extent  of  the  necessity  for  such 
preparedness. 

Now  the  people  know  only  a  part  of 
the  facts  on  which  a  comprehensive  judg- 
ment should  be  based.  They  have  been 
urged  to  do  the  things  which,  if  done, 
would  result  in  profit  to  the  manufacturers 


22  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

of  battleships  or  machinery  of  war.  Know- 
ing this,  many  people  go  to  the  other  ex- 
treme and  oppose  everything  in  the  way  of 
an  adequate  military  or  naval  system. 
This  tends  to  endanger  the  nation  by  un- 
preparedness,  just  as  the  Militarists  would 
endanger  it  by  over-preparedness,  or  a 
one-sided  and  unbalanced  preparedness, 
like  having  battleships  without  other 
things  even  more  necessary  for  naval  de- 
fense. 

The  government  should  manufacture 
for  itself  all  the  machinery  needed  by  it 
for  war  on  land  or  sea.  Its  manufacture 
by  anyone  else  should  be  prohibited  by 
law.  But  it  does  not  by  any  means  follow 
that  the  government  itself  should  refrain 
from  manufacturing  it,  under  the  condi- 
tions that  now  prevail  in  the  world. 
Neither  does  it  follow  that  there  will  be 
no  more  wars.  Nor  again  does  it  follow 
that  the  government  should  fail  to  be  at 
all  times  adequately  prepared  for  war. 
On  the  contrary,  the  possibility  of  war 
should  be  fully  recognized  and  national 
defense  should  not  be  neglected. 

Under  the  conditions  that  surround  this 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        23 

country  to-day,  no  nation  should  more 
carefully  than  ours  safeguard  against  the 
danger  of  unpreparedness.  The  United 
States  should  be,  not  unprepared,  but 
fully  prepared,  and  that  can  only  be  ac- 
complished by  carrying  out  the  plan  ad- 
vocated in  this  book,  for  both  immediate 
and  ultimate  national  defense. 

The  assumption  that  this  country  will 
never  be  involved  in  a  foreign  war  is  one 
which  every  fact  of  history,  every  trait  of 
human  character,  and  every  probability 
of  the  future  proves  to  be  unwarranted, 
unless  measures  are  taken  and  things  done 
for  national  protection,  and  for  the  pres- 
ervation of  peace,  that  are  as  yet  not 
even  contemplated  by  the  people  of  this 
country. 

The  cost  of  those  measures  is  so  small, 
in  comparison  with  the  enormous  losses 
this  country  would  suffer  if  it  became  in- 
volved in  a  foreign  war,  that  to  forego 
them  because  of  the  cost  involved  would 
be  as  unwise  as  to  fail  to  equip  a  passenger 
steamer  with  life  preservers  as  a  matter 
of  economy. 


CHAPTER  II 

^ADVOCATES  of  Peace  present  no  plan 
for  national  defense  in  case  of  war.  They 
leave  it  to  the  Militarists  to  provide  for  that 
contingency.  The  Militarists  have  pro- 
posed  no  adequate  plan  for  national  defense. 
No  plan  has  been  evolved,  other  than  that 
urged  in  this  book,  which  would  in  all  emer- 
gencies safeguard  the  nation  against  war,  and 
at  the  same  time  be  in  sympathy  with  and 
strengthen  every  movement  to  promote  peace. 

To  make  this  clear,  the  various  schools 
of  thought  on  the  subject  should  be 
classified,  and  their  views  briefly  outlined. 

On  the  one  hand  we  have  the  Mili- 
tarists. They  constantly  clamor  for  a 
bigger  navy  and  a  larger  army  on  the 
ground  that  we  are  unprepared  for  war  — 
unarmed,  unready,  undefended  —  and 
that  war  is  liable  to  occur  at  any  time. 

On  the  other  hand  we  have  the  Passi- 
vists.  They  have  the  courage  of  their  con- 
victions. Believing  in  peace,  they  oppose 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        25 

war,  and  all  the  means  whereby  it  is  made. 
Having  faith  in  moral  influence,  they 
oppose  armaments.  They  are  consistent, 
and  urge  that  this  nation  should  disarm 
and  check  military  expenditures.  In  their 
peace  propaganda  before  the  people  they 
have  squarely  and  honestly  contended  for 
this  national  policy  for  which  they  deserve 
infinite  credit. 

In  case  of  war,  they  have  no  plan. 

They  leave  that  to  the  Militarists. 

Between  these  two  extremes  we  have 
the  Pacificists.  They  deplore  war  and  talk 
for  peace,  but  believe  in  building  battle- 
ships. They  argue  for  arbitration  and 
advocate  disarmament,  but  have  not  op- 
posed steadily  increasing  appropriations 
for  naval  and  military  expenditures  by 
the  United  States.  They  justify  this  posi- 
tion on  the  plea  that  the  best  guarantee 
against  war  is  an  army  and  navy.  They 
oppose  war  but  not  appropriations  for 
war.  They  hold  peace  conferences  and 
pass  peace  resolutions,  but  do  not  go  before 
the  committees  of  Congress  and  object  to 
expenditures  for  armaments  and  milita- 
rism. In  this  class  belong  all  peace  advo- 


26  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

cates  who  are  builders  of  battleships  or 
manufacturers  of  armor  plate  or  arma- 
ments, and  their  associates. 

This  suggests  the  question  whether  such 
a  manufacturer  is  a  safe  pilot  for  a  peace 
movement,  however  generously  it  may  be 
subsidized,  and  whether  an  armor-plate 
mill  and  a  peace  palace  are  appropriate 
trace-mates.  It  would  be  unfortunate  if 
the  subtle  influence  of  subconscious  self- 
interest  should  creep  into  peace  councils  or 
affect  the  policy  of  a  peace  movement. 
However  that  may  be,  the  theory  that 
armaments  prevent  war  has  been  pretty 
well  exploded  by  recent  events. 

The  Pacificists,  in  case  of  war,  have  no 
plan  of  their  own  to  propose. 

They,  too,  leave  that  to  the  Militarists. 

Then  we  have  the  Pacificators. 

They  advocate  disarmament  and  a 
tribunal  of  peace  in  the  nature  of  an  in- 
ternational court  to  determine  interna- 
tional differences  and  make  binding  de- 
crees; and  they  propose  the  establishment 
of  an  international  army  and  navy  under 
the  control  of  that  court  to  enforce  its 
decrees.  Of  course  it  must  be  conceded 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        27 

that  this  plan  may  fail,  or  its  success  be 
long  delayed,  and  that  in  the  meantime  it 
affords  no  guarantee  of  peace. 

The  Pacificators,  however,  propose  no 
plan  in  the  event  of  war. 

They  also  leave  that  to  the  Militarists. 

Finally  comes  the  Woman's  Movement 
for  Constructive  Peace,  out  of  which  has 
grown  the  organization  of  the  Woman's 
Peace  Party. 

Much  may  be  hoped  for  from  this 
organization  if  it  will  concentrate  its 
strength,  and  not  try  to  do  too  many 
things  at  once. 

If  the  women  of  the  world  will  unite  and 
put  the  same  militant  force  behind  the 
peace  movement  that  they  have  put  be- 
hind the  suffrage  movement  they  can 
end  wars.  There  is  no  doubt  of  that. 
But  it  will  require  world-wide  organiza- 
tion, good  generalship,  and  great  concen- 
tration of  effort.  "One  thing  at  a  time" 
should  be  their  motto. 

The  following  platform  was  adopted  by 
the  Woman's  Peace  Party : 

"The  purpose  of  this  organization  is  to 
enlist  all  American  women  in  arousing  the 


28  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

nations  to  respect  the  sacredness  of  human 
life  and  to  abolish  war.  (1)  The  immediate 
calling  of  a  convention  of  neutral  nations  in 
the  interest  of  early  peace.  (2)  Limitations 
of  armaments  and  the  nationalization  of 
their  manufacture.  (3)  Organized  opposition 
to  militarism  in  our  own  country.  (4)  Ed- 
ucation of  youth  in  the  ideals  of  peace. 

(5)  Democratic   control   of   foreign   policies. 

(6)  The  further  humanizing  of  governments 
by  the  extension  of  the  franchise  to  women. 

(7)  Concert  of  nations  to  supersede  'balance 
of  power.'      (8)   Action  toward  the  general 
organization  of  the  world  to  substitute  law 
for  war.     (9)  The  substitution  of  an  inter- 
national police  for  rival  armies  and  navies. 

(10)  Removal  of  the  economic  causes  of  war. 

(11)  The  appointment  by  our  government  of 
a  commission  of  men  and  women,  with  an 
adequate    appropriation,    to    promote    inter- 
national peace." 

That  platform  is  a  well  condensed  out- 
line of  a  very  comprehensive  program. 
It  covers  the  whole  ground.  Some  of  the 
things  it  advocates  ought  to  be  possible 
of  accomplishment  within  a  few  years. 
Others  will  require  generations.  For  ex- 
ample, it  is  well  to  frankly  face  the  even- 
tual necessity  for  it,  but  democratic  control 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE         29 

of  the  foreign  policies  of  Germany  and 
Russia,  for  instance,  must  be  worked  out 
by  the  people  of  those  countries,  possibly 
through  bloody  political  revolutions. 

However,  faith  and  not  skepticism  was 
the  reason  for  publishing  this  platform  in 
full.  The  tenth  plank,  "Removal  of  the 
economic  causes  of  war,"  would  include 
many  features  of  the  plan  proposed  in  this 
book.  As  embodied  in  the  book,  the  plan 
is  specific.  The  platform  is  a  generaliza- 
tion, and  might  include  many  other  plans. 

But  it  will  be  observed  that  the  platform 
does  not  suggest  any  plan  as  to  what  should 
be  done  by  the  Woman's  Peace  Party 
in  the  event  of  war  or  to  safeguard  the 
country  from  the  dangers  of  actual  war. 
They  must  concede  that  war  may  occur, 
pending  the  partial  or  entire  success  of 
their  campaign  to  establish  universal 
peace  throughout  the  world.  But  they 
propose  no  plan  covering  the  contingency 
of  war. 

They  likewise  leave  that  to  the  Militarists. 

So,  although  we  have  plans  galore  to 
promote  peace,  we  have  in  case  of  war  no 
plans  except  those  of  the  Militarists. 


30  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

They  have  three  plans: 

First:  A  standing  army  large  enough 
for  any  contingency. 

Second:  A  standing  army,  reenforced 
by  state  militia. 

Third:  A  standing  army  with  a  reserve 
composed  of  men  who  have  served  a  term 
of  enlistment  in  the  regular  army. 

None  of  these  plans  could  be  relied  on 
for  national  defense  in  the  event  of  war 
between  the  United  States  and  any  one  of 
the  great  world  powers.  That  will  be 
fully  demonstrated  in  the  subsequent 
chapters  of  this  book. 

To  insure  the  national  safety  as  against 
such  a  contingency,  a  standing  army  of 
over  500,000  men  would  be  necessary. 
It  would  cost  this  country  $600,000,- 
000  a  year  to  maintain  such  a  stand- 
ing army,  and  the  army  itself  would  be 
a  more  dangerous  menace  than  a  foreign 
invasion. 

The  utter  worthlessness  of  state  militia 
as  a  national  defense  in  the  event  of  war 
with  a  first-class  power  is  strongly  set 
forth  in  the  warning  by  George  Washing- 
ton quoted  in  a  later  chapter. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        31 

The  impracticability  of  a  reserve  force 
like  that  proposed  by  the  Militarists  is 
clearly  shown  in  the  article  from  which 
quotations  are  made  in  a  later  chapter  by 
Honorable  James  Hay,  Chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Military  Affairs  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  in  the  Congress 
of  the  United  States. 

The  situation  when  analyzed  is  certainly 
a  most  extraordinary  one  and  can  only  be 
accounted  for  on  the  theory  that  the  people 
of  this  country  are  not  informed  as  to  the 
facts  and  assume  that  we  must  be  pre- 
pared for  war,  and  able  to  defend  our- 
selves in  case  of  war,  by  reason  of  the 
stupendous  expenditures  we  have  been 
making  for  over  ten  years  for  the  mili- 
tary branch  of  the  government.  To  the 
average  man  it  would  seem  as  though 
$250,000,000  a  year  ought  to  be  enough 
to  provide  for  the  national  defense. 

The  situation  would  be  different  if  we 
had  any  assurance  that  the  United  States 
would  never  again  be  involved  in  a  war. 
In  that  event  we  would  need  no  plans  for 
national  defense. 

But  we  have  no  such  assurance. 


32  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

The  Peace  Advocates  give  no  guarantee 
against  war. 

The  Militarists  believe  war  inevitable. 

Neither  insures  peace  and  neither  is 
prepared  against  war. 

The  people  are  between  the  upper  and 
the  nether  millstone. 

We  cannot  be  certain  of  peace. 

We  are  undefended  in  case  of  war. 

The  situation  is  illustrated  by  the  old 
darkey's  coon  trap  that  would  "catch  'era 
either  comin'  or  gwine." 

The  frank  belief  of  the  Militarists  that 
war  must  be  regarded  as  inevitable  is 
well  expressed  in  the  following  quotation 
from  an  editorial  in  "The  Navy,"  a  jour- 
nal published  at  Washington,  D.C. 

"Since  the  beginning  of  the  war  in  Europe, 
the  assertion  has  been  repeatedly  made  that 
this  is  the  last  great  war;  that  the  peoples  of 
the  world  will  be  so  impressed  with  the  wanton 
destruction  of  life  and  property,  that  there 
will  be  organized  some  form  of  international 
arbitration  that  will  prevent  future  wars. 
Not  so.  The  war  now  raging  between  the 
nations  of  Europe  is  much  more  probably 
but  the  first  of  a  series  of  tremendous  world- 
wide conflicts  that  will  be  fought  by  the  in- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        33 

habitants  of  the  earth  for  national  supremacy, 
until  the  supremacy  is  obtained  by  a  single 
people,  or  possibly  by  an  amalgamated  race, 
the  ingredients  of  which  are  just  now  being 
thrown  into  the  melting  pot. 

"The  wars  of  the  past  will  sink  into  com- 
parative insignificance  when  future  historians 
compile  statistics  of  coming  conflicts  among 
the  nations  of  the  earth." 

Whether  all  this  be  true  or  not,  there  is 
enough  foundation  for  such  beliefs  to  make 
it  imperative  that  the  comprehensive  and 
complete  plan  set  forth  in  this  book 
should  be  adopted  to  harmonize  the  peace 
propaganda  with  plans  for  national  de- 
fense in  case  of  war. 

It  can  be  done  and  it  must  be  done. 

The  plan  proposed  in  this  book  will 
tremendously  strengthen  the  peace  prop- 
aganda, and  there  is  no  reason  why 
every  Militarist  should  not  heartily  ap- 
prove and  accept  it,  unless  he  is  mak- 
ing a  profit  out  of  the  manufacture  of 
war  machinery  or  dependent  on  it  for 
employment. 

In  that  event  we  must  strongly  ap- 
peal to  patriotism  and  try  to  induce  the 
surrender  of  personal  profit  or  benefit  in 


34  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

order  that  we  may  preserve  the  nation 
and  promote  human  welfare. 

Anyone  who  rejects  the  possibility  of 
war  must  be  blind  to  current  events. 

Sad  indeed  it  is  that  it  should  be  true, 
but  none  the  less  it  is  a  staring  fact  that 
every  theory  that  war  between  civilized 
nations  had  ceased  to  be  possible  has  been 
rudely  shattered  by  recent  events. 

Every  prediction  that  there  would  be 
no  more  wars  has  proved  false. 

Every  plan  heretofore  proposed  to  pre- 
vent war  has  thus  far  proved  futile. 

Every  influence  relied  on  to  put  an  end 
to  war  has  proved  a  broken  reed. 

The  Socialists  have  inveighed  against 
war. 

Now  they  are  voting  war  loans  and 
fighting  in  the  armies. 

The  labor  organizations  have  long  pro- 
claimed their  opposition  to  war. 

The  war  is  on,  and  they  are  apparently 
giving  little  attention  to  it. 

Again  and  again  it  has  been  declared 
that  kings  make  wars  and  the  people  fight 
them. 

That  is  all  very  true,  in  the  past  and  in 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        35 

the  present,  but  once  more  the  people  are 
doing  the  fighting. 

We  have  been  told  that  the  workingmen 
of  the  world  have  power  to  stop  war. 

No  doubt  they  have,  if  they  would  use 
it,  but  they  will  not  do  so. 

While  this  greatest  of  all  the  world's 
wars  was  brewing,  the  workingmen  were 
busy  manufacturing  the  machinery  of 
destruction. 

And  they  are  still  doing  it. 

And  they  will  keep  on  doing  it,  as  long 
as  wages  are  to  be  earned  that  way. 

Every  piece  of  shrapnel  that  crashes 
into  a  human  brain,  or  tears  a  human 
heart,  or  mangles  a  human  hand  on  a 
battlefield  has  been  laboriously  and  pa- 
tiently made  by  some  other  human  hand 
working  for  wages  in  some  factory. 

Some  manufacturer  has  thereby  made 
a  profit. 

And  the  money  to  pay  that  profit  was 
loaned  to  some  Christian  nation  for  its 
war  chest  by  some  sanctimonious  pawn- 
broker of  the  class  described  in  "  Unseen 
Empire"  by  David  Starr  Jordan. 

It  is  civilized  warfare,  among  civilized 


36  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

nations,  in  this  age  of  civilization,  sus- 
tained by  civilized  legislative  representa- 
tives of  civilized  people,  conducted  by 
civilized  soldiers,  equipped  for  human 
destruction  by  civilized  business  men  who 
furnish  machinery  of  war  that  is  manu- 
factured by  civilized  workingmen. 

And  the  workingman  makes  wages,  the 
business  man  earns  his  good  dividends, 
the  banker  gets  his  snug  profit,  and  the 
man  at  the  top,  "the  man  on  horseback," 
who  started  the  bloody  orgy  gets  div- 
idends, honors,  special  privileges,  and 
greater  power  as  his  share  in  this 
twentieth-century  massacre  of  humanity 
by  the  so-called  humane  methods  of  mod- 
ern civilized  warfare. 

It  is  the  hypocrisy  of  it  all  that  makes  it 
so  revolting. 

And  if  it  were  not  that  so  many  are 
making  wages  or  salaries  or  profits  or 
dividends  out  of  the  whole  organized 
scheme  of  modern  warfare,  it  would  be 
much  easier  to  put  an  end  to  it.  That  is 
the  vital  point  where  the  women  of  the 
world  should  strike  first  if  they  are  to  end 
war. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        37 

It  is  the  private  profit  made  from  war 
by  a  few  that  makes  it  so  hard  to  stop  the 
ruin  by  war  of  the  many. 

The  awful  waste  of  war  has  been  made 
clear,  and  yet  the  most  monstrously 
wasteful  war  of  history  is  now  being 
fought. 

It  has  been  urged  that  the  huge  debts 
owing  for  old  wars  made  new  wars  impossi- 
ble, but  stupendous  new  war  loans  are 
now  being  made. 

The  people  of  Europe  were  said  to  have 
reached  the  limit  of  endurance  of  war 
burdens,  but  they  are  bending  their  backs 
for  a  heavier  load. 

America  has  expressed  deep  sympathy 
in  the  past  for  the  war-ridden  and  burden- 
bearing  nations  of  Europe,  overlooking 
apparently,  at  least  in  recent  years,  some 
important  facts. 

Germany  makes  no  hypocritical  pre- 
tenses to  being  a  nation  of  peace.  She  is 
avowedly  a  nation  of  warriors  and  believes 
in  war. 

But  she  gets  something  for  what  she 
spends  besides  soldiers  and  battleships. 

While  she  has  been  perfecting  the  most 


38  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

stupendous  and  perfectly  organized  war 
machine  that  has  ever  existed  in  the  world, 
she  has  perfected  just  as  gigantic  and 
splendidly  effective  machinery  for  con- 
ducting the  affairs  of  peace. 

Her  people  may  well  smile  in  their 
sleeves  at  us  when  we  condole  with  them 
about  the  heavy  war  burdens  that  have 
been  loaded  upon  them.  They  have  at 
least  got  something  effective  and  efficient 
for  their  money.  We  have  got  prac- 
tically nothing. 

Germany  has,  it  is  true,  spent  huge 
sums  for  armament,  but  at  the  same  time 
she  has  developed  her  internal  resources, 
constructed  vast  public  improvements, 
planted  great  forests,  and  built  a  system 
of  waterways  that  is  the  marvel  of  the 
world. 

Have  we  done  the  same?     No. 

Why  not?  Because  we  are  told  by  the 
guardians  of  Uncle  Sam's  exchequer  that 
we  cannot  afford  it.  We  spend  so  much 
money  on  our  army  and  navy, — a  quarter 
of  a  billion  dollars  a  year — for  which  we 
get  nothing  in  return, — not  even  national 
defense,  —  that  we  are  told  we  cannot  af - 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        39 

ford  to  enter  upon  any  great  plans  for 
internal  improvements,  or  stop  floods,  or 
regulate  rivers,  or  build  a  genuine  inland 
waterway  system. 

And  the  people  stand  for  it,  and  patiently 
allow  themselves  to  be  "  led  by  the  nose  as 


asses  are.9' 


This,  of  course,  is  very  gratifying  to  the 
speculators  and  exploiters  who  are  gather- 
ing into  their  own  capacious  grab-bags 
what  is  left  of  the  natural  resources  of  the 
country. 

When  this  reason  is  added  to  their  in- 
terest in  armor-plate  factories,  it  may 
account  for  some  of  their  zeal  for  mili- 
tarism. And  of  course  they  realize  the 
necessity  for  a  good  large  standing  army 
that  will  keep  the  people  from  being 
troublesome  when  they  discover  that  their 
heritage  has  been  stolen  from  them.  Any 
little  incident  like  the  French  Revolution 
would  be  excessively  annoying  to  the 
intrenched  interests  in  this  country.  An 
army  looks  good  to  them,  and  the  latch- 
string  is  always  out,  socially,  to  the  mem- 
bers of  the  military  caste  who  greatly 
enjoy  the  hospitality  of  the  gilded  caste. 


40  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

Every  one  who  looks  at  all  four  corners 
of  the  situation  in  this  country  understands 
why  every  pretext  is  seized  upon  to  get 
bigger  and  bigger  appropriations  for  the 
army  and  navy.  A  navy  provides  a  big 
profit  in  armor  plate  and  an  army  provides 
protection  for  that  profit. 

The  Wizards  of  Wall  Street  are  wise. 

They  see  a  long  way  ahead. 

The  people  never  see  very  far.  They  are 
easily  scared  by  a  hue  and  cry  about 
unpreparedness  when  naval  or  military  ap- 
propriations are  wanted. 

They  readily  swallow  the  bait  of  econ- 
omy, when  the  interests  desire  to  defeat 
an  appropriation  that  is  needed  to  develop 
natural  resources  belonging  to  the  people 
which  are  coveted  by  the  Water  Power 
Syndicates,  or  an  appropriation  that  is 
needed  to  build  waterways  which  would 
make  competition  for  railroads. 

Water  Power  Syndicates  and  Railroads 
and  Armor-Plate  Mills  are  all  controlled 
by  the  same  coterie  of  intrenched  inter- 
ests. They  understand  each  other  and 
work  together  perfectly  without  even  the 
necessity  for  a  gentleman's  agreement. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        41 

The  people  have  been  asleep  a  long  time 
but  some  day  they  will  wake  up. 

For  years  the  Gospel  of  Peace  has  been 
proclaimed  to  the  world  from  the  United 
States.  During  that  period  we  have  been 
busy  building  battleships  and  piling  up 
great  private  fortunes  from  making  armor 
plate.  We  have  been  urging  disarmament 
while  spending  millions  to  increase  our 
own  armaments.  We  have  been  advocat- 
ing arbitration  while  constantly  increasing 
our  military  expenditures. 

Since  the  day  when  Congress  in  a 
frenzy  of  patriotic  outburst  voted  fifty 
millions  in  fifteen  minutes  to  start  our 
war  with  Spain,  the  peace  propaganda  has 
been  vigorously  prosecuted  and  in  that 
period  we  have  had  war  after  war:  the 
Spanish-American  War,  the  Russo-Japa- 
nese War;  war  in  the  Philippines,  war  in 
Greece,  war  in  the  Balkans,  war  in  South 
Africa,  war  in  Algeria,  war  in  Morocco, 
war  in  Tripoli,  war  in  Mexico,  war  again 
in  the  Balkans,  and  now  nearly  all  of 
Europe  is  ablaze  with  war  and  its  flames 
are  reddening  Asia  and  Africa. 

It  gives  one  an  unpleasant,  gruesome 


42  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

feeling  to  think  about  it.  The  substance 
seems  always  to  have  been  on  the  side 
of  war,  the  shadow  only  on  the  side  of 
peace. 

That  is  no  reason  why  the  movement 
for  peace  should  be  abandoned,  but  is 
it  not  a  reason  for  completely  changing 
the  ideals  and  methods  of  the  peace  move- 
ment, and  adopting  a  plan  such  as  is  em- 
bodied in  this  book  for  a  constructive 
peace  propaganda,  that  will  strengthen 
the  peace  movement,  and  at  the  same  time 
solve  our  most  difficult  internal  social 
and  economic  problems  and  make  sure 
that  if  war  ever  does  befall  us  we  will  be 
found  not  unprepared,  not  unarmed,  not 
unready,  not  undefended? 

If  everything  were  done  that  the  most 
extreme  Militarist  advocates,  we  would 
still  be  undefended,  and  we  will  remain  so 
until  our  whole  military  system  is  con- 
structed anew,  and  a  real  system  of  na- 
tional defense  organized  as  outlined  in 
this  book. 

The  Frankenstein  of  war  can  be  controlled. 

But  it  can  only  be  controlled  by  or- 
ganizing a  system  of  national  defense 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        43 

against  Nature's  destroying  forces,  which 
can,  by  touching  a  button,  be  instantly 
transformed,  if  need  be,  into  a  force  for 
national  defense  against  a  foreign  invasion 
or  to  uphold  the  rights  or  honor  of  the 
nation. 


CHAPTER  III 

J  HE  Militarists  will  never  initiate  an 
adequate  system  for  national  defense  in  the 
United  States,  because  such  a  system  neces- 
sitates an  organization  under  civil  control  in 
time  of  peace.  It  must  be  an  organization  that 
will  at  all  times  act  as  a  self-operating  and 
self-perpetuating  influence  to  promote  peace 
and  prevent  war.  It  must  also  automatically 
and  instantly  become  an  impregnable  defense 
against  foreign  attack  or  invasion  if,  in  spite 
of  all  precautions  and  efforts  to  prevent  it, 
war  should  actually  occur  at  any  time  in  the 
future. 

Whatever  we  do  for  national  defense 
should  be  done  primarily  to  prevent  and 
safeguard  against  the  breaking  out  of  war. 
Every  plan  for  national  defense  should, 
like  the  plan  proposed  in  this  book,  be 
formulated  with  that  end  in  view.  That 
should  be  its  clearly  defined  objective. 
There  should  be  no  possibility  of  any  mis- 
take about  that.  It  should  be  made  so 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        45 

plain  that  there  never  could  be  any  mis- 
understanding as  to  that  being  the  primary 
purpose  of  the  plan. 

A  national  force  should  be  organized 
primarily  for  civil  duty  in  time  of  peace. 
It  should  be  organized  in  such  a  way  that 
it  could  at  a  moment's  notice  be  converted 
into  a  military  machine  for  national  de- 
fense in  case  of  war.  But  that  conversion 
should  be  a  secondary  object.  The  neces- 
sity for  such  a  conversion  should  be  re- 
garded as  a  remote  possibility,  to  prevent 
which  every  human  power  would  be 
exerted,  but  which  might  occur,  notwith- 
standing all  that  could  be  done  to  prevent 
it. 

An  illustration  of  this  situation  might 
be  drawn  from  the  case  of  an  aeroplane 
constructed  for  aerial  service.  It  would 
be  needed  and  built  for  work  in  the  air. 
But  if  it  were  possible  that  it  might  be 
needed  for  use  over  water,  then  it  might  be 
so  constructed  that  in  the  event  of  falling 
on  the  water  it  could  still  keep  afloat  and 
propel  itself.  Aerial  navigation  would  be 
the  primary  purpose  of  its  construction. 
Water  navigation  would  be  secondary,  and 


46  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

not  intended  to  be  resorted  to  except  in 
case  of  accident.  It  would  serve  as  a  safe- 
guard against  death  which  might  otherwise 
be  caused  by  an  event  only  remotely  pos- 
sible. 

If  the  necessity  for  making  our  system 
for  national  defense  primarily  an  instru- 
ment of  peace  is  constantly  borne  in  mind, 
it  will  make  progress  easier  and  more 
rapid  and  certain.  It  will  eliminate  many 
complications  that  would  result  if  we 
should  undertake  to  look  to  the  military 
establishment  to  formulate  plans  for  a 
system  of  national  defense  that  would  be 
operative  for  peace  as  well  as  for  war. 
In  the  past  the  whole  matter  of  national 
defense  has  been  left  to  the  Army  and 
Navy.  That  is  the  reason  why  no  satis- 
factory system  has  been  evolved.  Natu- 
rally the  Army  and  the  Navy  can  see 
nothing  in  any  plan  which  does  not  in- 
volve simply  a  greater  army  and  a  greater 
navy. 

If  it  is  now  left  to  the  War  Department 
to  make  plans  for  a  military  system  that 
will  be  adequate  for  national  defense, 
there  are  many  reasons  why  a  satisfac- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE       47 

tory  system  will  never  be  devised.  The 
idea  would  be  incomprehensible  to  a 
Regular  Army  man  that  a  national  or- 
ganization, available  for  civil  duties  in 
time  of  peace,  could  in  time  of  war  be 
automatically  expanded  into  a  military 
machine  strong  enough  for  the  national 
defense. 

Men  educated  and  trained  in  the  mili- 
tary profession  do  not  comprehend  con- 
ditions outside  of  the  purely  military 
environment  in  which  they  live.  They  do 
not  understand  humanity  or  the  temper  of 
the  people  in  civil  life.  They  have  been 
trained  in  an  atmosphere  of  social  exclu- 
siveness  and  educated  to  believe  that  they 
belong  to  a  superior  caste.  They  live  in  a 
world  of  their  own,  separate  and  apart 
from  their  fellowmen.  This  is  every 
whit  as  true  in  America  as  it  is  in  Ger- 
many. The  only  difference  is  in  the  rela- 
tive size  of  the  armies. 

The  Militarists  have  no  real  sympathy 
with  any  peace  movement.  They  say 
that  we  always  have  had  war  and  that  we 
always  will  have  war.  They  look  forward 
with  enthusiastic  anticipation  to  the  next 


48  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

war  as  an  opportunity  for  activity  and 
promotion.  War  is  their  trade,  their  pro- 
fession. They  regard  with  patronizing 
pity  all  who  have  risen  to  the  higher  level 
that  regards  war  as  an  anarchistic  an- 
achronism, and  are  willing  to  make  any 
sacrifice  to  end  it  forever.  They  have 
never  read  the  chapter  entitled  "The  Iron 
in  the  Blood"  in  "The  Coming  People," 
by  Charles  F.  Dole. 

They  are  devoted  to  their  duty,  as  they 
understand  it,  and  are  as  brave  and  loyal 
soldiers  as  ever  existed  on  the  earth. 
But  really  it  is  unreasonable  to  expect  a 
soldier  to  be  anything  but  a  Militarist. 
He  is  bred  if  not  born  to  war,  trained 
to  fight  and  to  study  the  war  game,  the 
war  maneuvers,  to  fortify,  to  attack,  to 
repel,  to  .figure  out  a  masterly  retreat  if 
it  becomes  necessary.  You  cannot  expect 
him  to  be  a  peace  advocate  or  to  work 
out  plans  which  will  prevent  or  abolish 
war.  It  is  no  part  of  his  duty  as  he  sees 
it  to  undertake  to  devise  plans  for  peace 
that  would  render  the  professional  soldier 
obsolete  and  relegate  him  and  his  brother 
soldiers  to  a  place  by  the  side  of  the 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        49 

chivalrous  Knights  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
or  the  Crusaders  who  fought  the  Sara- 
cens to  rescue  the  Holy  Sepulcher  from 
the  infidels  —  picturesque  and  romantic 
but  expensive  and  useless. 

Moreover,  Army  officers  are  hampered 
in  all  planning  for  constructive  work  by 
their  rigid  adherence  to  precedent.  They 
have  a  medieval  contempt  for  everything 
non-military,  and  for  all  civil  duties  and 
affairs.  All  this  results  from  the  existence 
of  a  military  caste  in  this  country  which  is 
as  supercilious,  self-opinionated,  and  auto- 
cratic as  the  military  aristocracy  of  the 
most  military  ridden  nation  of  Europe. 

They  lack  initiative  and  originality 
because  their  whole  education  has  operated 
to  drill  it  out  of  them,  and  to  make  men 
who  are  mere  machines,  doing  what  they 
are  told  to  do,  and  doing  it  well,  but  doing 
nothing  else.  That  is  the  exact  opposite 
of  the  type  of  mind  demanded  in  an 
emergency  requiring  initiative  and  the 
genius  to  originate  and  carry  out  new  and 
better  ways  of  doing  things  than  those  that 
have  prevailed  in  the  past. 

Men  with  the  military  training  appear  to 


50  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

entirely  lack  the  analytical  mind  that  seeks 
for  causes,  and  comprehends  that  by  re- 
moving the  cause,  the  evil  itself  may  be 
safeguarded  against,  or  may  in  that  way 
be  prevented  from  ever  coming  into  exist- 
ence. 

This  fact  is  well  illustrated  by  the  stupen- 
dous losses  the  country  has  suffered  from 
floods  because  the  Army  Engineers  have  for 
years  so  stubbornly  refused  to  consider  plans 
for  controlling  floods  at  their  sources. 

Solid  arrays  of  facts  presented  to  them 
have  contributed  nothing  to  breaking 
down  their  stolid  egotism. 

They  will  not  originate,  or  approve, 
any  plan  that  does  not  center  everything 
that  is  proposed  to  be  done  in  the  War 
Department  and  thereby  enlarge  its  in- 
fluence and  prestige.  They  oppose  every 
plan  to  coordinate  the  War  Department 
with  other  departments,  or  to  put  the 
Army  on  the  same  plane  with  the  others 
in  working  out  plans  for  constructive  co- 
operation. 

The  members  of  the  military  caste  do 
not  seem  to  be  able  to  comprehend  that 
the  stamp  of  an  inferior  caste  which  they 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        51 

put  upon  enlisted  men,  and  the  menial 
services  exacted  from  private  soldiers  by 
their  officers,  create  conditions  that  are 
revolting  to  every  instinct  of  a  man  with 
the  right  American  spirit  of  self-respect. 
They  are  a  relic  of  the  barbaric  period 
when  the  private  soldier  was  an  ignorant 
brute.  Those  conditions  alone  are  suffi- 
cient to  render  impracticable  any  plan  for 
a  reserve  composed  of  soldiers  who  have 
served  out  their  term  of  enlistment. 

In  "On  Board  the  Good  Ship  Earth," 
Herbert  Quick  says : 

"All  institutions  must  sooner  or  later  be 
transformed  so  as  to  accord  with  the  principles 
of  democracy  —  or  they  must  be  abolished. 
The  great  objection  to  standing  armies  is 
their  conflict  with  democracy.  They  are 
essentially  aristocratic  in  their  traditions. 
The  officers  must  always  be  'Gentlemen*  and 
the  privates  merely  men.  The  social  supe- 
riority of  officer  over  man  is  something  enor- 
mous. Every  day's  service  tends  to  make 
the  man  in  the  ranks  a  servile  creature,  and 
the  man  with  epaulettes  a  snob  and  a 
tyrant." 

The  standing  army  to-day  represents 
an  economic  waste  of  labor  of  the 


52  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

entire  body  of  enlisted  men.  Many 
soldiers  are  demoralized  by  the  inactiv- 
ity or  idleness  of  the  life  of  the  camp  or 
the  barracks. 

The  whole  conception  of  the  military 
caste  as  to  what  the  Army  ought  to  be  is 
medieval  and  monstrously  wrong.  The 
United  States  Army  should  be  a  training 
school  for  the  very  highest  type  of  self- 
respecting,  independent,  and  self-sustain- 
ing citizenship  that  this  country  can 
produce.  It  should  be  a  great  educational 
institution,  training  every  enlisted  man  to 
be  an  officer  in  the  Reserve,  or  to  be  a 
Homecrofter  after  he  returns  to  private 
life.  Daily  manual  constructive  labor 
should  be  a  part  of  every  soldier's  duty. 
The  relation  between  officer  and  enlisted 
men  should  be  that  of  instructor  and  stu- 
dent. Such  a  relation  is  entirely  consistent 
with  the  absolute  authority  that  would  be 
vested  in  the  instructor. 

The  Army  System  should  be  such  that 
an  opportunity  to  serve  a  term  as  an  en- 
listed man  would  be  coveted  as  much  as  an 
appointment  to  West  Point  is  now  coveted. 
The  Army  should  train  men  for  civil  life 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        53 

and  citizenship,  not  ruin  them  for  it  as  it 
now  so  often  does. 

The  many  wrong  conditions  above  re- 
ferred to  result  from  the  unfortunate  atti- 
tude of  mind  of  those  who  compose  the 
military  caste.  Those  conditions  make  it 
impracticable  to  ever  successfully  carry 
out  any  plan  for  useful  constructive  labor 
by  enlisted  men  in  the  military  service. 
It  would  be  impossible  to  ever  enlist  as 
a  Reserve  a  Construction  Force  composed 
of  men  who  believe  in  the  dignity  of  labor 
and  refuse  to  recognize  the  superiority  of 
any  caste  in  American  life  or  citizenship, 
if  such  a  Reserve  were  made  subject  to  the 
control  of  the  War  Department. 

If  this  statement  is  not  a  fact,  why  is  it 
that  no  useful,  constructive  work  is  ac- 
complished by  the  fifty  odd  thousand  able- 
bodied  enlisted  men  of  our  Regular  Army? 
The  same  men  would  accomplish  super- 
human manual  labor  in  case  of  war. 
And  the  same  conditions  would  obtain 
if  our  army  was  100,000  or  200,000  or 
500,000  strong. 

This  wasteful  situation  taken  as  a  whole 
makes  it  impracticable  to  work  out  any 


54  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

plans  which  might  otherwise  be  initiated 
or  formulated  by  the  War  Department  for 
creating  a  great  reserve  force  that  would 
be  entirely  under  the  control  of  the  civil 
departments  of  the  national  government 
in  time  of  peace.  It  is  imperative  that 
such  civil  control  should  prevail.  Were  it 
otherwise,  the  same  danger  of  military 
domination  in  government  affairs  would 
arise  that  would  result  from  the  mainte- 
nance of  a  standing  army  in  this  country 
large  enough  to  serve  as  a  national  defense 
in  time  of  war  with  any  first-class  power. 

And  the  establishment  of  a  National  Con- 
struction Service  as  a  Reserve  Force,  enlisted 
for  work  to  be  done  under  civil  control  in  time 
of  peace,  but  available  for  military  service  in 
time  of  war,  constitutes  one  of  the  most 
practicable  plans  for  creating  a  Reserve  from 
which  an  army  for  national  defense  could  be 
instantly  mobilized  in  time  of  war. 

The  plan  proposed  by  the  War  Depart- 
ment, of  a  short  term  of  service  in  the 
regular  army,  followed  by  liability  to  serv- 
ice in  a  reserve  made  up  of  men  dis- 
charged after  this  short-service  term,  could 
never  be  worked  out  effectively. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        55 

The  impracticability  of  that  plan  has 
been  clearly  shown  by  Representative 
James  Hay,  Chairman  of  the  Committee 
on  Military  Affairs  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, in  a  recent  magazine  article  in 
which  he  says: 

"Military  authorities,  backed  by  the  opin- 
ions of  many  persons  high  in  civil  life,  insist 
that  we  should  be  provided  with  an  adequate 
reserve  of  men,  so  that  we  may  in  any  time 
of  trouble  have  men  who  will  be  prepared  to 
enter  the  army  fully  trained  for  war.  In  this 
I  concur;  but  in  a  country  where  military 
service  is  not  compulsory  the  method  of  pro- 
viding a  reserve  is  an  extremely  complex 
problem,  one  that  has  not  yet  been  satisfac- 
torily solved  by  anybody.  It  is  proposed, 
among  other  things,  to  have  short  enlistments, 
and  thus  turn  out  each  year  a  large  number 
of  men  who  will  be  trained  soldiers.  Let  us 
examine  this  for  a  moment  and  see  where  it 
will  lead,  and  whether  any  good  will  come  out 
of  it,  either  for  the  army  or  for  the  country. 

"After  giving  this  question  of  a  reserve  for 
the  army  the  most  careful  thought,  after 
having  heard  the  opinion  of  many  officers 
of  our  army,  —  and  those  too  best  qualified 
to  give  opinions  on  a  matter  of  this  sort, — 
I  am  convinced  that,  under  our  system  of 
military  enlistment,  it  is  impracticable  to 


56  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

accumulate,  with  either  a  long-term  or  a  short- 
term  enlistment  period,  a  dependable  reserve 
force  of  fairly  well  trained  men.  To  use  our 
army  as  a  training  school  would  destroy  the 
army  as  such,  and  fail  utterly  to  create  any 
reserve  that  could  be  depended  upon  as  a  large 
body  of  troops. 

"The  proposal  of  the  General  Staff  of  the 
army  has  been  that  the  men  should  enlist  for 
two  years  and  then  spend  five  years  in  the 
reserve.  The  five  years  in  the  reserve  is  im- 
possible in  this  country,  because  we  have  no 
compulsory  military  service  and  because  it  is 
intended  by  the  authors  of  the  plan  not  to 
pay  the  reserve  men.  And  it  is  an  open-and- 
shut  proposition  that  men  cannot  be  expected 
to  enter  the  reserve  voluntarily,  without  pay, 
when  the  regulations  would  require  them  to 
submit  to  such  inconveniences  as  applying  to 
the  department  for  leave  to  go  from  one  State 
to  another  or  into  a  foreign  country,  and  when 
they  would  be  compelled  to  attend  maneuvers, 
often  at  distant  points,  at  least  twice  a  year." 

The  Militarists,  the  professional  mili- 
tary men,  and  those  who  draw  their  in- 
spiration from  that  source,  present  no 
plan  for  enlarging  our  army  in  time  of  war 
except: 

(1)  The  proposed  Reserve  system  so 
clearly  shown  in  the  above  quotation  to 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        57 

be  impracticable;  (2)  Reliance  upon  State 
Militia  to  reenforce  the  regular  army  — 
a  plan  rejected  by  all  who  are  willing  to 
learn  by  experience;  and  (3)  The  increase 
of  the  standing  army,  to  bring  it  up  to  a 
point  where  it  could  at  any  time  cope  with 
the  standing  armies  of  other  powers,  and 
its  maintenance  there. 

Another  quotation  from  the  same  article 
by  Representative  Hay  will  give  the  facts 
that  show  the  impracticability  of  the 
plan  for  increasing  the  standing  army: 

"But,  in  order  to  make  more  evident  what 
Congress  has  given  to  the  army  and  the  conse- 
quent results  that  must  have  been  obtained 
therefrom  let  me  call  attention  to  the  fact 
that  during  the  last  ten  years  the  appropria- 
tions for  the  support  of  the  military  establish- 
ments of  this  country  have  amounted  to  the 
grand  total  of  $1,007,410,270.48,  almost  as 
much  as  is  required  to  pay  all  the  other  ex- 
penses of  the  government,  all  the  salaries,  all 
the  executive  machinery,  all  the  judiciary, 
everything,  for  an  entire  year. 

"Thus,  during  this  period,  the  army  appro- 
priations have  annually  been  from  $70,000,000 
to  $101,000,000;  the  Military  Academy  ap- 
propriations, from  $673,000  to  $2,500,000  a 
year;  for  fortifications,  from  $4,000,000  to 


58  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

$9,300,000;  for  armories  and  arsenals,  from 
$330,000  to  $860,000;  for  military  posts, 
from  $320,000  to  $4,380,000;  by  deficiency 
acts,  military  establishment,  from  $657,000 
to  $5,300,000;  and  for  Pacific  railroads 
transportation  and  the  enlisted  men's  deposit 
fund,  a  total  for  the  ten  years  of  $11,999,271. 
"The  totals  for  the  ten  fiscal  years  1905  to 
1915  have  been  as  follows: 

Permanent  appropriations  (including 
Pacific  railroads  transportation  and 
enlisted  men's  deposit  fund)  .  .  .  $11,999,271.00 

Fortification  acts,  armories  and  arse- 
nals, and  military  posts  in  sundry 
civil  acts,  and  deficiencies  for  mili- 
tary establishments  in  deficiency 
acts  113,071,133.17 

Army  appropriation  acts 868,536,993.31 

Military  Academy  acts 13,802,873.00 

Total $1,007,410,270.48 

"However,  in  spite  of  this  showing  of  the 
great  expense  of  maintaining  a  small  army, 
the  Militarists  keep  up  their  clamor  —  par- 
ticularly at  such  a  time  as  this,  and  again 
whenever  a  military  appropriation  bill  is  up 
for  consideration  in  the  House  —  that  this 
country  be  saddled  with  a  great  standing  army. 
There  is  not  the  slightest  need  of  such  an 
establishment.  But,  if  there  were  some  slight 
indication  of  trouble  with  a  fully  equipped 
great  power,  would  the  people  of  this  country 
be  ready  to  embark  on  a  policy  that  would 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        59 

mean  the  permanent  maintenance  of  a  regu- 
ar  standing  army  of  500,000  men?  It  would 
cost  this  country,  at  a  conservative  estimate, 
$600,000,000  a  year  to  go  through  with  such 
Ian  undertaking." 

Now  after  fully  weighing  that  situation 
in  the  mind,  as  set  forth  by  Representa- 
tive Hay,  put  beside  it  the  following  facts 
as  given  by  Homer  Lea,  in  "The  Valor  of 
Ignorance": 

"European  nations  in  time  of  peace  main- 
tain armies  from  three  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  to  five  hundred  thousand  men  and 
officers,  together  with  reserves  of  regulars 
varying  from  two  to  five  million,  with  a  pro- 
portionate number  of  horses  and  guns,  for 
the  same  money  that  the  United  States  is 
obliged  to  expend  to  maintain  fifty  thousand 
troops  with  no  reserve  of  regulars. 

" Japan  could  support  a  standing  peace  army 
exceeding  one  million  men  for  the  same  amount 
of  money  this  Republic  now  spends  on  fifty 
thousand. 

"This  proportion,  which  exists  in  time  of 
peace,  becomes  even  more  excessive  in  time 
of  war;  for  whenever  war  involves  a  country 
there  exists  in  all  preparation  an  extrava- 
gance that  is  also  proportionate  to  the  wealth 
of  the  nation. 


60  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

"During  the  last  few  years  of  peace,  from 
1901  to  1907,  the  United  States  Government  has 
expended  on  the  army  and  navy  over  fourteen 
hundred  million  dollars:  a  sum  exceeding  the 
combined  cost  to  Japan  of  the  Chinese  War  and 
the  Russian  War,  as  well  as  the  entire  mainte- 
nance of  her  forces  during  the  intervening  years 
of  peace." 

And  again,  the  same  author  says: 

"A  vast  population  and  great  numbers  of 
civilian  marksmen  can  be  counted  as  assets 
in  the  combative  potentiality  of  a  nation  as 
are  coal  and  iron  ore  in  the  depths  of  its  moun- 
tains, but  they  are,  per  se,  worthless  until  put 
to  effective  use.  This  Republic,  drunk  only 
with  the  vanity  of  its  resources,  will  not  dif- 
ferentiate between  them  and  actual  power. 

"Japan,  with  infinitely  less  resources,  is  mili- 
tarily forty  times  more  powerful. 

"Germany,  France,  or  Japan  can  each 
mobilize  in  one  month  more  troops,  scientifi- 
cally trained  by  educated  officers,  than  this 
Republic  could  gather  together  in  three  years. 
In  the  Franco-Prussian  War,  Germany 
mobilized  in  the  field,  ready  for  battle,  over 
half  a  million  soldiers,  more  than  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  horses  and  twelve 
hundred  pieces  of  artillery  in  five  days.  The 
United  States  could  not  mobilize  for  active 
service  a  similar  force  in  three  years.  A 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        61 

modern  war  will  seldom  endure  longer  than 
this. 

"Not  only  has  this  nation  no  army,  but 
it  has  no  military  system." 

We  have  in  the  United  States  a  military 
establishment  adequate  to  suppressing 
riots,  controlling  mobs,  preventing  local 
anarchy,  and  protecting  property  from 
destruction  by  internal  disturbance  or 
uprisings  in  our  own  country.  As  a  na- 
tional police  force,  our  army  is  an  entirely 
adequate  and  satisfactory  organization. 
But  policing  a  mining  camp  and  fighting 
an  invading  army,  are  two  widely  different 
propositions.  So  would  fighting  a  Japan- 
ese army  be  from  fighting  a  few  Spaniards 
or  Filipinos. 

When  it  comes  to  a  "military  system" 
adapted  to  the  needs  of  a  foreign  war  with 
a  first-class  nation,  we  have  none;  and 
thus  far  none  has  been  proposed.  A  sys- 
tem that  depends  on  creating  the  machin- 
ery for  national  defense  by  any  plan  to  be 
undertaken  after  hostilities  have  begun,  is 
no  system  at  all,  and  cannot  be  classed  as 
a  system  for  national  defense.  It  is  a 
system  for  national  delusion.  A  Volunteer 


62  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

Army,  or  any  volunteer  organization,  be- 
longs in  this  class,  and  so  in  fact  does  the 
State  Militia. 

The  national  defense  involves  two  sepa- 
rate and  distinct  problems : 

First,  the  defense  of  the  nation  against 
invasion  by  another  nation. 

Second,  the  defense  of  the  nation  and  of 
its  social,  civil,  and  political  institutions 
from  internal  disturbance  and  civil  con- 
flict. 

It  may  safely  be  assumed  that  there 
will  never  again  be  a  civil  conflict  between 
any  two  different  sections  of  this  country. 
That  there  will  inevitably  be  such  a  con- 
flict between  contending  forces  within  the 
body  politic  itself,  no  sane  man  will  deny, 
if  congested  cities  and  tenement  life  are 
to  be  allowed  to  continue  to  degenerate 
humanity  and  breed  poverty  and  misery. 
They  will  ultimately  undermine  and  de- 
stroy the  mental  and  physical  racial 
strength  of  the  people.  We  will  then  have 
a  population  without  intelligence  or  rea- 
soning powers.  Such  a  proletariat  will 
constitute  a  social  volcano,  an  ever  present 
menace  to  internal  peace. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        63 

Conflicts  such  as  that  which  so  recently 
existed  in  Colorado,  approach  very  closely 
to  civil  war.  They  have  occurred  before. 
They  will  occur  again.  They  may  occur 
at  any  time.  Whenever  they  do  occur,  it 
may  be  necessary  to  invoke  the  power  of 
the  nation,  acting  through  the  army  as  a 
police  force,  to  preserve  the  peace  and 
protect  life  and  property. 

For  that  work  it  must  be  conceded  that 
we  need  an  army.  As  it  has  been  well  ex- 
pressed, we  need  "a  good  army  but  not  a 
large  army."  It  may  be  conceded  that 
we  need  for  that  purpose,  and  for  Insular 
and  Isthmian  Service,  and  for  garrison 
duty,  an  army  as  large  as  that  now  author- 
ized by  Congress  when  enlisted  to  the  full 
strength  of  100,000  men,  but  no  more.  Set 
the  limit  there  and  keep  it  there,  and  fight 
any  plan  for  an  increase. 

The  question  whether  we  should  have 
an  army  of  50,000  men  or  100,000  men  is 
of  comparatively  small  importance.  As 
to  that  question  there  need  be  no  contro- 
versy on  any  ground  except  that  of  com- 
parative wisdom  of  expenditure.  There 
are  other  things  this  country  should  do, 


64  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

that  it  is  not  doing,  which  are  of  more 
importance  than  to  maintain  an  army  of 
100,000  instead  of  50,000,  or  than  to  build 
more  battleships  at  this  time. 

An  army  needed  as  a  national  police 
force  to  safeguard  against  any  sort  of 
domestic  disturbance  is  a  very  different 
proposition  from  the  army  we  would  need 
in  the  event  of  a  war  with  any  of  the  great 
world  powers.  An  army  of  100,000  is  as 
large  as  we  will  ever  need  to  safeguard 
against  domestic  disturbance.  An  army 
any  larger  than  that,  for  that  purpose, 
should  be  opposed  as  a  menace  to  the 
people's  liberties,  and  a  waste  of  the  na- 
tion's revenues. 

It  is  conceded  on  all  sides,  however,  that 
if  it  ever  did  happen,  however  remote  the 
possibility  may  be,  that  the  United  States 
became  involved  in  a  war  with  a  for- 
eign nation  of  our  own  class,  an  army 
of  100,000  men  would  be  impotent  and 
powerless  for  national  defense.  So  would 
an  army  of  £00,000  men.  An  army  of 
200,000  is  twice  as  large  as  we  should 
have  in  time  of  peace.  In  the  event  of 
war  with  any  first-class  power  we  would 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        65 

have  to  have  an  army  five  or  ten  times 
200,000. 

It  would  therefore  be  utterly  unwar- 
ranted and  unwise  to  increase  our  standing 
army  from  100,000  to  £00,000.  There  is 
no  reasonable  ground  or  hypothesis  on 
which  it  can  be  justified.  Any  proposition 
for  such  an  increase  should  meet  with 
instant  and  just  condemnation  and  de- 
termined opposition. 

A  war  between  the  United  States  and 
some  other  great  power  is  either  possible 
or  it  is  impossible.  If  it  is  impossible, 
then  we  need  do  nothing  to  safeguard 
against  it.  If  it  is  possible,  either  in  the 
near  or  distant  future,  then  we  should  safe- 
guard against  it  adequately  and  com- 
pletely; we  should  do  everything  that  may 
be  necessary  to  prevent  war  or  to  defend 
ourselves  in  the  event  of  war. 

To  say  that  war  is  impossible  is  con- 
trary to  all  common  sense  and  reason, 
and  runs  counter  to  conclusions  forced  by 
a  careful  study  of  probabilities  and  of  the 
compelling  original  causes  for  war  that 
may  in  their  evolution  involve  this  nation. 

Field  Marshal  Earl  Roberts  told  the 


66  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

English  people,  over  and  over  again,  that 
they  were  in  imminent  danger  of  a  war  with 
Germany.  No  one  believed  him  —  at  least 
not  enough  of  them  to  make  any  impres- 
sion on  public  sentiment  —  and  England 
was  caught  unprepared  by  the  present  war. 
Therefore,  let  full  weight  be  given  to 
Lord  Roberts'  declaration  and  warning 
as  to  the  future,  as  recently  published: 

"/  would  ask  them  not  to  be  led  away  by 
those  who  say  that  the  end  of  this  great  struggle 
is  to  be  the  end  of  war9  and  that  it  is  bound  to 
lead  to  a  great  reduction  of  armament.  There 
is  nothing  in  the  history  of  the  world  to  justify 
any  such  conclusion.  Nor  is  it  consonant  with 
ordinary  common  sense." 

Such  a  statement  as  this,  from  such  a 
man,  cannot  be  whistled  down  the  wind. 
This  country  must  inevitably  face  the 
condition  that  in  all  probability  the  pres- 
ent war  will  increase  rather  than  reduce 
the  danger  that  the  United  States  may 
become  involved  in  war. 

It  may  be  argued  that  Germany,  once 
a  possible  antagonist,  will  be  so  weakened 
by  this  great  conflict  as  not  to  desire  an- 
other war.  The  contrary  will  prove  true. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        67 

If  Germany  should  prevail,  the  ambition 
of  her  War  Lords  would  know  no  limit, 
until  Germany  dominated  the  world. 

If  Germany  should  not  prevail,  no 
matter  how  much  she  may  be  humbled  by 
defeat,  she  will  start  over  again,  with  all 
the  latent  strength  of  her  people,  to  re- 
build from  the  ruins  a  more  powerful 
military  nation  than  she  has  ever  been. 
With  the  record  before  us  of  what  Germany 
has  accomplished  since  the  close  of  the 
Thirty  Years'  War,  can  anyone  deny  that 
a  great  Teutonic  military  power  might 
again  be  developed  from  the  ashes  of  a 
ruined  nation? 

If  we  look  across  the  Pacific  at  Japan, 
we  see  a  nation  strengthened  and  proudly 
conscious  of  victory  as  a  result  of  the 
present  war.  Whatever  other  nations  may 
suffer,  Japan  gets  nothing  from  this  war 
but  national  advancement  and  national 
glory.  The  latter  is  a  mighty  asset  for  her, 
because  of  the  inspiration  and  stimulus  it 
affords  to  her  people  in  all  their  national 
efforts  and  ambitions  for  advancement  and 
expansion. 

Russia,  England,  and  France,  however 


68  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

great  their  losses  may  be,  will  come  out 
of  this  war  with  enormously  enlarged 
military  strength,  and  with  their  national 
forces  solidified  and  concentrated  behind 
the  military  power  in  those  governments. 
In  none  of  them  will  this  new  accretion 
and  concentration  of  military  govern- 
mental power  be  thereafter  voluntarily 
limited  or  surrendered. 

Let  us  then  not  deceive  ourselves  by  any 
visions  of  world  peace  which  exist  only  in 
dreams,  or  follow  shadows  into  the  quick- 
sands in  which  we  would  find  ourselves 
mired  down  if  this  nation  were  caught 
unprepared  in  a  war  with  any  of  the  great 
nations  above  named. 

The  question  of  national  defense,  in 
the  event  of  such  a  war,  is  not  one  of 
battleships,  so  on  that  point  we  need  not 
trouble  ourselves  much  with  the  contro- 
versy about  how  many  battleships  this 
country  should  build  in  a  year.  If  we 
had  as  many  battleships  as  England  has 
to-day,  they  might  prove  a  broken  reed 
when  tested  as  a  means  of  national  de- 
fense in  case  of  a  war  with  either  England, 
France,  or  Japan. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        69 

A  standing  army  of  100,000  men,  or 
even  of  200,000  men,  would  prove  ut- 
terly inadequate  for  our  national  defense 
in  such  a  war.  Worse  than  that,  our  whole 
military  system  is  fatally  defective.  It 
entirely  lacks  the  capacity  of  instant  auto- 
matic expansion  necessary  to  quickly  put 
an  army  of  a  million  men  in  the  field. 
It  would  be  imperative  and  unavoidable 
that  we  should  do  so,  the  moment  we 
became  involved  in  war  with  a  first-class 
power.  A  million  men  would  be  the  mini- 
mum size  of  the  army  we  would  need  the 
instant  war  started  with  any  great  nation 
like  Japan.  As  a  system  for  national  de- 
fense in  such  a  war  our  standing  army  is  a 
dangerous  delusion.  Its  existence,  and 
the  false  reliance  placed  on  it,  delays  the 
adoption  of  a  system  that  would  prove 
adequate  to  any  emergency. 

The  militia  system  of  the  United  States 
is  another  delusion,  and  in  case  of  war 
would  be  little  better  than  useless.  Wash- 
ington had  his  own  bitter  experiences  to 
guide  him,  and  he  warned  the  people  of 
this  country  against  militia  in  the  follow- 
ing vigorous  terms: 


70  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

"Regular  troops  alone  are  equal  to  the 
exigencies  of  modern  war,  as  well  for  defense 
as  offense,  and  when  a  substitute  is  attempted, 
it  must  prove  illusory  and  ruinous. 

"No  Militia  will  ever  acquire  the  habits 
necessary  to  resist  a  regular  force.  The  firm- 
ness requisite  for  the  real  business  of  fighting 
is  only  to  be  attained  by  constant  course  of 
discipline  and  service. 

"I  have  never  yet  been  a  witness  to  a  single 
instance  that  can  justify  a  different  opinion, 
and  it  is  most  earnestly  to  be  wished  that  the 
liberties  of  America  may  no  longer  be  trusted, 
in  a  material  degree,  to  so  precarious  a  de- 
fense." 

In  the  face  of  all  these  facts,  the  people 
of  the  United  States  are  groping  in  the 
dark.  They  may  have  a  vague  and  glim- 
mering idea  of  their  danger,  but  as  yet  no 
definite  and  practicable  plan  for  national 
defense  in  case  of  war  has  been  suggested, 
except  that  proposed  in  this  book. 

The  beautiful  iridescent  dream  and  vi- 
sion of  an  army  of  a  million  patriotic  souls 
hurrying  to  the  colors  in  the  event  of 
national  danger  brings  only  counter  vi- 
sions of  Bull  Run  and  Cuba,  of  confusion, 
waste,  death,  and  devastation,  before  we 
could  possibly  get  these  men  officered, 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        71 

trained,  equipped,  and  organized  to  fight 
any  first-class  power  according  to  the 
methods  of  modern  warfare. 

As  an  illustration,  what  would  our  piti- 
fully small  army,  and  our  almost  raw  and 
untrained  levies  of  militia,  do  in  a  grim 
conflict  with  the  200,000  trained  and  sea- 
soned and  perfectly  armed  and  equipped 
soldiers  which  Japan  could  land  on  our 
shores  within  four  weeks,  or  the  500,000 
she  could  land  in  four  months,  or  the 
1,000,000  she  could  land  in  ten  months? 
We  could  not  by  any  possibility  get  a  mili- 
tary force  of  equal  strength  into  action  on 
the  Pacific  coast  in  that  length  of  time  or 
in  anywhere  near  it. 

That  is  where  our  danger  lies,  and 
therein  exists  the  startling  menace  of  our 
unpreparedness  for  war.  It  is  not  that 
we  lack  men  or  money.  No  nation  in  the 
world  has  better  soldiers  than  those  now 
serving  under  our  flag.  We  no  doubt 
have  the  raw  material  for  a  larger  army 
than  any  nation  or  any  two  nations  could 
utilize  for  the  invasion  of  our  territory, 
but  any  one  of  three  or  four  nations  could 
humble  and  defeat  us  several  times  over 


72  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

before  we  could  whip  this  raw  material 
into  shape  for  a  fighting  force  and  get  it 
armed  and  equipped  for  actual  warfare. 

The  conclusion  from  this  would  on  the 
surface  naturally  seem  to  be  that  we 
must  have  a  larger  standing  army.  The 
strange  and  apparently  contradictory  but 
undeniable  fact  is  that  a  larger  standing 
army,  organized  in  accordance  with  our 
present  military  system,  would  merely 
increase  our  danger,  and  might  precipitate 
a  war  that  would  otherwise  have  been 
avoided. 

A  great  standing  army  in  this  country 
would  ultimately  create  the  same  national 
psychological  condition  that  existed  in 
Germany  before  this  last  war.  There  were 
many  who  averred  when  this  war  broke 
out  that  it  was  the  war  of  the  Kaiser  and 
his  War  Lords,  and  contrary  to  the  spirit 
and  wishes  of  the  German  people.  The 
exact  opposite  has  been  thoroughly  estab- 
lished. Strange  as  it  may  seem,  we  must 
accept  the  fact  that  the  German  people, 
as  the  result  of  generations  of  education 
from  childhood  to  manhood,  look  upon  war 
as  a  necessary  element  of  German  expan- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        73 

sion  and  the  growth  of  the  empire  to  which 
they  are  all  patriotically  devoted. 

More  than  this,  ringed  about  as  they 
have  been  for  centuries  with  a  circle  of 
armed  adversaries,  it  was  inevitable  that 
a  spirit  should  be  developed  in  the  minds 
of  the  people  that  their  only  safety  as  a 
nation  lay  in  Militarism,  however  much 
they  might  deplore  its  necessity  as  indi- 
viduals, groan  under  its  burdens,  or  per- 
sonally dread  military  service. 

The  moment  the  people  of  the  United 
States  accepted  as  a  fact  the  belief  that 
a  standing  army  large  enough  for  national 
protection  is  the  only  way  for  this  country 
to  safeguard  against  an  armed  adversary, 
that  moment  would  the  attitude  of  mind 
of  our  people  towards  war  become  the 
same  as  that  of  Germany  and  France. 
After  this  war  it  will  be  the  attitude  of 
mind  of  the  people  of  Great  Britain. 
England  has  been  shaken  to  her  core,  and 
never  again  will  she  be  found  unprepared 
for  war  at  any  moment  that  it  may  come. 


CHAPTER  IV 

J  HE  system  for  national  defense  in  the 
United  States  must  embrace  a  National 
Construction  Reserve,  organized  primarily 
to  fight  Nature's  forces  instead  of  to  fight 
the  people  of  another  nation.  It  must  be  so 
organized  that  it  will  furnish  a  substitute 
for  the  supreme  inspiration  to  patriotism, 
and  the  tremendous  stimulus  to  energy  and 
organized  effort  that  war  has  furnished  to 
the  human  race  through  all  the  past  cen- 
turies of  the  existence  of  the  race. 

This  National  Construction  Reserve 
must  be  an  organized  force  of  men  regu- 
larly enlisted  for  a  term  in  the  service  of 
the  national  government.  The  men  in 
the  Reserve  must  be  under  civil  control 
when  engaged  in  construction  service,  and 
under  military  control  when  in  military 
service  in  time  of  war.  Those  enlisted 
in  the  Reserve  would  labor  for  their  country 
in  construction  service  in  time  of  peace, 
building  great  works  of  internal  improve- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        75 

ment  and  constructive  national  develop- 
ment, with  exactly  the  same  spirit  of 
patriotic  service  that  they  would  fight 
under  the  flag  and  dig  trenches  or  build 
fortifications  in  time  of  war. 

We  must  organize  this  National  Con- 
struction Reserve  for  a  conflict  to  conquer, 
subjugate,  and  hold  in  strong  control  the 
forces  of  Nature.  We  must  organize  our 
national  forces  and  expend  our  national 
revenues  for  that  conflict,  instead  of  or- 
ganizing them  for  devastation  and  human 
slaughter.  We  must  organize  a  national 
system  that  will  create,  not  destroy;  that 
will  conserve,  not  waste,  human  life,  and 
homes,  and  the  country's  resources. 

We  must  plan  to  enlist  our  national 
forces  in  a  great  conflict  with  Nature, 
to  save  life  and  property,  instead  of  enlisting 
them  in  conflicts  with  other  nations  to 
destroy  life  and  property.  We  must  de- 
velop a  patriotism  that  will  be  as  active  in 
constructive  work  in  time  of  peace  as  in 
destructive  work  in  time  of  war.  We 
must  enlist  a  National  Construction  Re- 
serve that  will  put  forth  in  time  of  peace 
for  constructive  human  advancement  the 


76  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

same  extraordinary  energy  and  invincible 
determination  that  war  arouses. 

The  construction  work  of  the  Forest 
Service  should  be  done  by  a  Construction 
Corps  enlisted  in  that  Service.  Every 
forester  should  be  a  reservist.  A  regularly 
enlisted  force  of  fire-fighters  and  tree- 
planters  should  be  organized  —  tens  of 
thousands  of  them  —  to  fight  forest  fires 
and  to  fight  deserts  and  floods  by  planting 
forests.  The  planting  and  care  of  new 
forests  should  be  done  by  regularly  organ- 
ized companies  of  enlisted  men,  detailed 
for  that  work,  exactly  as  they  would  be 
detailed  for  a  soldier's  duties  in  time  of 
war. 

The  work  of  the  Reclamation  Service 
should  be  done,  not  by  hired  contractors, 
but  by  a  Construction  Corps  of  men  en- 
listed in  that  Service.  They  should  be  set 
to  work  building  all  the  works  necessary 
to  reclaim  every  acre  of  desert  land  and 
every  acre  of  swamp  or  overflow  land  that 
can  be  reclaimed  in  the  United  States. 

The  cost  of  all  reclamation  work  done 
by  the  national  government  should  be 
charged  against  the  land  and  repaid 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        77 

with  interest  from  the  date  of  the 
investment.  The  interest  charge  should 
be  no  more  than  the  government  would 
have  to  pay  on  the  capital  invested,  with 
an  additional  annual  charge  sufficient  to 
form  a  sinking  fund  that  would  repay  the 
principal  in  fifty  years. 

The  work  of  the  Forest  Service  as  well 
as  that  of  the  Reclamation  Service  should 
be  put  on  a  business  basis.  New  forests 
should  be  planted  where  their  value  when 
matured  will  equal  the  investment  in 
their  creation,  with  interest  and  cost  of 
maintenance. 

The  same  system  of  enlisting  a  Con- 
struction Corps  to  do  all  construction  work 
should  be  adopted  in  every  department 
of  the  national  government  which  is  doing 
or  should  be  doing  the  vast  volume  of 
construction  work  which  stands  waiting 
at  every  hand.  Each  branch  should  have 
its  regularly  enlisted  Construction  Corps. 

All  the  different  branches  of  the  govern- 
ment dealing  in  any  way  with  forestry  or 
with  the  conservation,  use,  or  control  of 
water,  in  the  War  Department,  Interior 
Department,  Agricultural  Department,  or 


78  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

Commerce  Department,  should  be  co- 
ordinated and  brought  together  in  a  Board 
of  River  Regulation.  The  coordination  of 
their  work  should  be  made  mandatory  by 
law  through  that  organization.  All  the 
details  of  perfecting  the  formation  of  the 
Construction  Reserve  and  its  organiza- 
tion for  constructive  service  in  time  of 
peace  and  for  military  service  in  time  of 
war  should  be  worked  out  through  this 
coordinating  Board  of  River  Regulation. 

The  duty  of  the  men  enlisted  in  the 
National  Construction  Reserve  would  be 
not  only  to  do  the  work  allotted  to  them, 
but  to  do  it  in  such  a  way  as  to  dignify 
labor  in  all  the  works  of  peace.  It  should 
show  the  patriotic  spirit  with  which  work 
in  the  public  service  can  be  done  to  pro- 
tect the  country  from  Nature's  devasta- 
tions. It  should  demonstrate  that  such 
work  can  be  done  in  time  of  peace,  with 
the  same  energy  and  enthusiasm  that 
prevail  in  time  of  war. 

But  in  case  of  war,  the  National  Con- 
struction Reserve  must  be  so  organized 
that  it  can  be  instantly  transformed  into 
an  army  of  trained  and  seasoned  soldiers  — 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        79 

soldiers  that  can  beat  their  plowshares  into 
swords  at  a  day's  notice,  and  as  quickly 
beat  the  swords  back  into  plowshares 
when  weapons  are  no  longer  needed. 

In  the  development  of  this  idea  lies  the 
assured  safety  of  this  nation  against  the 
dangers  of  unpreparedness  in  the  event  of 
war.  There  will  be  more  than  work 
enough  for  such  a  Construction  Reserve 
to  do  in  time  of  peace  for  generations  yet 
to  come. 

Such  floods  as  those  which  swept 
through  the  Mississippi  Valley  in  1912  and 
1913  are  an  invasion  by  Nature's  forces. 
They  bring  ruin  to  thousands  and  devas- 
tate vast  areas.  They  overwhelm  whole 
communities  with  losses  as  great  as  the 
destruction  which  would  be  caused  by 
the  invasion  of  an  armed  force. 

Floods  of  that  character  are  national 
catastrophes,  as  are  likewise  such  floods 
as  that  which  devastated  the  Ohio  Valley 
in  1913,  and  the  more  recent  floods  in 
Southern  California  and  Texas.  Floods 
should  be  safeguarded  against  by  an  or- 
ganized national  system  for  flood  protec- 
tion. That  National  System  for  River 


80  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

Regulation  and  Flood  Control  should  be 
brought  into  being  and  impelled  to  ac- 
tion by  an  overwhelming  mental  force, 
generated  in  the  minds  of  the  whole 
people.  It  should  be  a  power  as  irresist- 
ible as  that  which  projected  us  into  the  war 
with  Spain,  after  the  Maine  was  blown 
up  in  Havana  harbor. 

The  ungoverned  floods  which  for  years 
have  periodically  devastated  the  Great 
Central  Valley  of  the  United  States  can 
never  be  wholly  safeguarded  against  by 
any  sort  of  local  defense.  They  must  be 
controlled  at  their  sources.  The  problem 
is  interstate  and  national.  Works  to 
prevent  floods  in  the  Lower  Mississippi 
Valley  from  Cairo  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
must  be  constructed,  maintained,  and 
operated  on  every  tributary  of  the  Ohio, 
the  Upper  Mississippi,  and  the  Missouri 
Rivers — a  stupendous  project  but  en- 
tirely practicable. 

The  water  must  be  conserved  and  con- 
trolled where  it  originally  falls.  It  must 
be  held  back  on  the  watershed  of  every 
source  stream.  If  this  were  done,  the 
floods  of  the  Ohio  River  Valley  could  be 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        81 

so  reduced,  and  the  flow  of  the  river  so 
regulated,  as  never  in  the  future  to  cause 
damage  or  destruction. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  Missouri  and 
the  Upper  Mississippi  Rivers.  If  the 
floods  were  controlled  on  the  source 
streams  and  upper  tributaries,  the  floods 
of  the  Lower  Mississippi  could  be  pro- 
tected against  by  levees,  supplemented  by 
controlled  outlets  and  spillways  as  ad- 
ditional safeguards.  Millions  of  garden 
homes  could  in  that  way  be  made  as  safe 
in  the  delta  of  the  Mississippi  River  now 
annually  menaced  by  overflow  as  any- 
where on  the  high  bench  lands  or  pla- 
teaus of  the  Missouri  Valley. 

To  do  this  work  would  be  to  defend  a 
territory  twice  as  large  as  the  entire 
cultivated  area  of  the  Empire  of  Japan 
against  the  annual  menace  of  destruction 
by  Nature's  forces. 

Is  not  that  a  national  work  that  is 
worth  doing?  Is  not  that  the  right  sort 
of  national  defense?  Is  it  not  an  under- 
taking large  enough  to  arouse  and  inspire 
the  whole  people  of  this  great  nation  to 
demand  its  accomplishment? 


82  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

To  do  it  right,  and  to  do  it  thoroughly 
and  effectively,  necessitates  the  system- 
atic organization  of  a  Construction  Corps 
under  national  direction  for  that  work. 
It  would  require  that  we  should  put  forth 
national  energy  as  powerful,  and  mental 
and  physical  effort  as  vigorously  effective, 
as  that  demanded  by  war. 

Why  then  should  not  a  National  Con- 
struction Reserve  be  organized  to  do  that 
work  as  efficiently  in  time  of  peace  as  it 
could  be  done  by  a  military  organization 
in  time  of  war,  if  the  doing  of  it  were  a 
war  necessity  instead  of  a  peace  measure? 

If  we  ever  succeed  in  safeguarding  this 
and  other  nations  against  war,  it  will  be 
because  we  have  learned  to  do  the  work 
of  peace  with  the  same  energy,  efficiency, 
patriotism,  and  individual  self-sacrifice 
that  is  now  given  to  the  work  of  war.  It  is 
because  Germany  learned  this  lesson  three 
centuries  ago  with  reference  to  her  forests 
and  her  waterways  that  she  now  has  a 
system  of  forests  and  waterways  built  by 
the  hand  of  man  and  built  better  than 
those  of  any  other  nation  of  the  world. 

This  great  work  of  safeguarding  and 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        83 

defending  the  Mississippi  Valley,  the  Ohio 
Valley,  and  the  Missouri  Valley  from 
flood  invasion,  if  done  by  the  United 
States  for  those  valleys,  must,  in  the  same 
way  and  to  the  same  extent,  be  done  by 
the  nation  for  all  other  flood-menaced  val- 
leys throughout  the  country. 

It  necessitates  working  out,  in  coopera- 
tion with  the  States  and  local  muni- 
cipalities and  districts,  a  comprehensive 
and  complete  plan  for  water  conservation, 
and  its  highest  possible  utilization  for  all 
the  beneficial  purposes  to  which  water  can 
be  devoted. 

It  necessitates  the  preservation  of  the 
forests  and  woodland  cover  on  the  water- 
sheds, the  reforestation  of  denuded  areas, 
and  the  planting  of  new  forests  on  a 
thousand  hillsides  and  mountains  and  on 
treeless  plains  where  none  exist  to-day. 

It  necessitates  the  building  of  model 
communities  on  irrigated  lands  intensively 
cultivated,  as  object  lessons,  in  a  multitude 
of  localities,  to  demonstrate  the  value, 
for  many  beneficial  uses,  of  the  water  which 
now  runs  to  waste  in  floods. 

It  necessitates  the  establishment  and 


84  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

maintenance  of  a  great  system  of  educa- 
tion to  train  the  people  in  the  intensive 
cultivation  of  land  and  the  use  of  water  to 
produce  food  for  mankind,  and  thereby 
transform  an  agency  of  destruction  into 
an  agency  of  production  on  a  stupendous 
scale. 

It  necessitates  building  and  operating 
great  reservoir  systems,  main  line  canals, 
and  engineering  works,  large  and  small, 
of  every  description  that  have  ever  been 
built  anywhere  in  the  world  for  the  con- 
trol of  water  for  beneficial  use,  and  to 
prevent  floods  and  feed  waterways. 

To  have  an  inland  waterway  system  in 
the  United  States,  in  fact  as  well  as  in 
name,  necessitates  building  on  all  the 
rivers  of  this  country  such  works  as  have 
been  built  on  every  river  in  Germany, 
such  works  as  the  Grand  Canal  of  China, 
and  such  works  as  the  English  government 
has  built  or  supervised  in  India  and 
Egypt,  and  is  now  planning  to  build  to 
reclaim  again  for  human  habitation  the 
once  populous  but  now  desert  and  unin- 
habited plains  of  Mesopotamia. 

No  argument  ought  to  be  needed  to  con- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        85 

vince  the  people  of  the  United  States  that 
this  great  work  of  national  defense  against 
Nature's  forces  should  arouse  the  same 
patriotic  inspiration  and  stimulate  us  to 
the  same  superhuman  effort  and  energy 
that  we  would  put  forth  to  prevent  any 
section  of  our  country  from  being  devas- 
tated by  war.  But  if  such  an  argument 
were  needed  it  is  found  in  the  condition  of 
Mesopotamia  to-day,  as  compared  with 
the  days  of  Babylon's  wealth  and  pros- 
perity. 

The  people  who  dwelt  on  the  Baby- 
lonian plains,  and  who  made  that  empire 
great  and  populous,  sustained  themselves 
by  the  irrigation  of  the  desert.  The  same 
processes  of  slow  destruction  which  are 
now  so  evidently  at  work  over  a  large 
portion  of  our  own  country,  gradually 
overcame  and  destroyed  the  people  of 
Mesopotamia.  The  floods  finally  de- 
stroyed the  irrigation  systems.  The  desert 
triumphed  over  man.  One  of  the  most 
densely  populated  regions  of  the  earth 
became  again  a  barren  wilderness. 

At  the  end  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War 
Germany  was  a  land  wasted  and  de- 


86  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

stroyed  by  war,  but  war  had  not  destroyed 
the  fertility  of  the  soil.  Crops  could  still 
be  raised  in  the  fields,  and  trees  could  be 
planted  on  the  mountains  that  would  grow 
into  forests.  All  this  was  done,  and 
modern  Germany  rose  out  of  the  ruins  of 
the  Germany  of  three  hundred  years  ago. 
War  had  destroyed  only  the  surface,  leav- 
ing the  latent  fertility  of  the  land  to  be 
revived  by  indomitable  human  labor. 

In  Mesopotamia  it  was  different.  There 
the  forces  of  Nature  destroyed  the  only 
means  of  getting  food  from  the  desert. 
Therefore  the  desert  prevailed  and  hu- 
manity migrated  or  became  extinct.  Will 
anyone  question  that  the  defense  of  Meso- 
potamia against  the  desert  should  have 
aroused  the  same  intensity  of  patriotism 
among  her  people  that  has  been  aroused  in 
past  wars  for  the  defense  of  Germany,  or 
as  has  been  aroused  for  the  defense  of 
Belgium  and  France  and  England  in  the 
present  war? 

Nature's  processes  of  destruction  work 
slowly  but  surely.  In  Mesopotamia  they 
have  gone  forward  to  the  ultimate  end. 
An  entire  people  who  once  constituted  one 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        87 

of  the  greatest  empires  of  the  world  have 
succumbed  to  and  been  annihilated  by 
the  Desert. 

Nature's  forces  have  worked  the  same 
complete  destruction  in  many  other 
places  in  Persia  and  Asia  Minor,  and  on 
the  eastern  shores  of  the  Mediterranean. 

Northern  Africa  was  once  a  fertile  and 
populous  country.  Its  wooded  hillsides 
and  timbered  mountains  gave  birth  to  the 
streams  by  which  it  was  watered.  It  is 
another  region  of  the  earth  that  has  been 
conquered  by  the  destroying  forces  of 
nature.  The  resources  of  vast  areas  of 
that  country,  its  power  to  sustain  man- 
kind, have  been  finally  destroyed  by 
those  blighting  forces  as  completely  as 
the  city  of  Carthage  was  obliterated  by 
the  Romans. 

If  the  fertility  of  the  lands  of  Northern 
Africa  had  been  as  indestructible  by  Na- 
ture's forces  as  the  fertility  of  the  lands  of 
Central  Europe,  a  new  nation  would  have 
arisen  in  Northern  Africa,  nursed  into 
being  by  that  indestructible  fertility. 
Wherever  the  natural  resources  are  de- 
stroyed the  human  race  becomes  extinct. 


88  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

A  battle  with  an  invading  army  may 
lead  to  temporary  devastation.  A  battle 
with  the  Desert,  if  the  Desert  triumphs, 
means  the  perpetual  death  of  the  defeated 
nation. 

Which  conflict  should  call  for  the  greatest 
patriotic  effort  for  national  defense? 

Patriotism  exerted  for  the  intelligent 
protection  of  any  country  from  the  de- 
struction of  its  basic  natural  resources,  is 
aimed  at  a  more  enduring  achievement 
when  it  fights  the  destroying  powers  of 
Nature  than  when  it  fights  against  a  tem- 
porary devastation  by  an  invading  army. 

The  complete  deforestation  and  denuda- 
tion of  the  mountains  of  China  and  the 
floods  caused  thereby  have  resulted  from 
the  intensive  individualism  of  her  people, 
and  from  their  utter  lack  of  any  systematic 
organization  of  governmental  machinery 
to  protect  the  resources  of  the  country. 

An  organized  system  of  forest  preser- 
vation and  flood  protection,  based  upon 
and  springing  from  a  spirit  of  patriotic 
service  to  the  nation  as  a  whole,  would 
have  saved  China  from  the  destruction  of 
resources  of  incalculable  value  to  her 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        89 

people,  and  it  would  have  saved  millions 
from  death  by  famine. 

Is  death  by  war  any  worse  than  death  by 
famine? 

The  chief  original  causes  of  the  great 
famines  of  China  have  been  floods  which 
were  preventable.  In  some  of  her  largest 
valleys  the  floods  have  resulted  primarily 
from  the  denudation  of  the  mountains 
and  the  destruction  of  the  woodland  and 
forest  cover  on  the  water-sheds  of  the 
rivers. 

In  "  The  Changing  Chinese  "  by  Prof. 
Edward  A.  Ross  some  vivid  descriptions 
will  be  found  of  the  havoc  wrought  by  de- 
forestation and  flood.  Here  is  one  of  the 
pictures  he  has  drawn  for  us  of  Chinese 
conditions : 

"On  the  Nowloon  hills  opposite  Hong  Kong 
there  are  frightful  evidences  of  erosion  due  to 
deforestation  several  hundred  years  ago.  The 
loose  soil  has  been  washed  away  till  the  coun- 
try is  knobbed  or  blistered  with  great  granite 
boulders.  North  of  the  Gulf  of  Tonkin  I  am 
told  that  not  a  tree  is  to  be  seen  and  the  sur- 
viving balks  between  the  fields  show  that  land 
once  cultivated  has  become  waste.  Erosion 
stripped  the  soil  down  to  the  clay  and  the 


90  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

fanners  had  to  abandon  the  land.  The 
denuded  hill-slopes  facing  the  West  River 
have  been  torn  and  gullied  till  the  red  earth 
glows  through  the  vegetation  like  blood.  The 
coast  hills  of  Fokien  have  lost  most  of  their 
soil  and  show  little  but  rocks.  Fuel-gatherers 
constantly  climb  about  them  grubbing  up 
shrubs  and  pulling  up  the  grass.  No  one 
tries  to  grow  trees  unless  he  can  live  in  their 
midst  and  so  prevent  their  being  stolen.  The 
higher  ranges  further  back  have  been  stripped 
of  their  trees  but  not  of  their  soil  for,  owing  to 
the  greater  rainfall  they  receive,  a  verdant 
growth  quickly  springs  up  and  protects  their 
flanks. 

"Deep-gullied  plateaus  of  the  loess,  gut- 
tered hillsides,  choked  water-courses,  silted- 
up  bridges,  sterilized  bottom  lands,  bankless 
wandering  rivers,  dyked  torrents  that  have 
built  up  their  beds  till  they  meander  at  the 
level  of  the  tree-tops,  mountain  brooks  as 
thick  as  pea  soup,  testify  to  the  changes 
wrought  once  the  reckless  ax  has  let  loose  the 
force  of  running  water  to  resculpture  the  land- 
scape. No  river  could  drain  the  friable  loess 
of  Northwest  China  without  bringing  down 
great  quantities  of  soil  that  would  raise  its 
bed  and  make  it  a  menace  in  its  lower,  slug- 
gish course.  But  if  the  Yellow  River  is  more 
and  more  'China's  Sorrow*  as  the  centuries 
tick  off,  it  is  because  the  rains  run  off  the 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        91 

deforested  slopes  of  its  drainage  basin  like 
water  off  the  roof  of  a  house  and  in  the  wet 
season  roll  down  terrible  floods  which  burst 
the  immense  and  costly  embankments,  spread 
like  a  lake  over  the  plain,  and  drown  whole 
populations." 

We  are  following  faithfully  in  the  foot- 
steps of  China  in  our  national  policy  of 
non-action  or  grossly  inadequate  action. 
It  is  only  a  question  of  time  when  we  will 
suffer  as  they  have  suffered,  unless  we 
mend  our  ways,  and  arouse  our  people  to 
the  spirit  of  patriotic  service  necessary, 
over  vast  areas  in  the  United  States,  to 
protect  our  mountains,  forests,  valleys, 
and  rivers  from  the  fate  of  those  in  China. 

The  Chinese  people,  lacking  in  national 
patriotism,  were  overcome  by  the  invasion 
of  barbaric  hordes  from  the  North,  and 
were  also  overwhelmed  by  the  destroying 
powers  of  Nature.  A  national  spirit  of 
patriotism,  bearing  fruit  in  national  or- 
ganization, would  have  protected  them 
from  both  disasters,  as  it  actually  did  pro- 
tect the  Japanese.  The  Japanese  have  not 
only  successfully  defended  themselves 
against  the  aggressions  of  Russia.  In  the 


92  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

same  spirit  of  energetic  and  purposeful 
patriotism,  they  have  preserved  and  uti- 
lized to  the  highest  possible  extent  the 
resources  of  their  country.  They  have 
defended  Japan  against  the  destructive 
forces  of  Nature  which  have  devastated 
China. 

The  hillsides  and  mountains  of  many 
sections  of  China  are  bared  to  the  bone  of 
every  vestige  of  forest  or  woodland  cover. 
The  floods  have  eroded  the  mountains  and 
filled  the  valleys  with  the  debris.  Tor- 
rential floods  now  rage  and  destroy  where 
perennial  streams  once  flowed.  In  Japan, 
those  perennial  streams  still  flow  from 
every  hillside  and  mountain,  feeding  the 
myriad  of  canals  with  which  her  fertile 
fields  are  laced  and  interlaced.  The 
result  is  that  on  only  12,500,000  acres  of 
intensively  cultivated  soil  Japan  sustains 
a  rural  population  of  30,000,000  people. 

The  power  of  Japan  as  a  nation  lies  in 
the  racial  strength  of  her  people.  That 
comes  largely  from  the  physical  vigor  and 
endurance  developed  by  the  daily  labor 
of  the  gardeners  who  till  the  soil.  They 
have  the  land  to  cultivate  because  the 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        93 

devotion  of  the  people  to  the  good  of  all 
has  led  them  to  preserve  their  forests  and 
water  supplies.  Where  would  they  be 
to-day  if  the  same  spirit  of  selfish  individ- 
ualism, and  apathy  and  indifference  to 
the  national  welfare,  and  to  the  preser- 
vation of  the  nation's  resources,  had  domi- 
nated Japan,  that  has  dominated  China  for 
centuries,  and  that  now  dominates  the 
United  States  of  America? 

In  "The  Valor  of  Ignorance,"  the 
author,  Homer  Lea,  most  truly  says : 

"No  national  ideals  could  be  more  anti- 
thetic than  are  the  ethical  and  civic  ideals  of 
Japan  to  those  existent  in  this  Republic.  One 
nation  is  a  militant  paternalism,  where  aught 
that  belongs  to  man  is  first  for  the  use  of  the 
State,  the  other  an  individualistic  emporium 
where  aught  that  belongs  to  man  is  for  sale. 
In  one  is  the  complete  subordination  of  the 
individual,  in  the  other  his  supremacy." 

The  author  might  with  equal  truth  have 
added  that  from  the  standpoint  of  the  in- 
trenched interests  which  control  capital 
in  the  United  States,  and  undertake  to 
control  legislation,  Humanity  and  Mother 
Earth  exist  only  for  exploitation  for  pri- 


94  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

vate  profit,  and  that  the  campaign  to  pre- 
serve and  perpetuate  our  natural  resources 
and  regulate  our  rivers  and  build  water- 
ways and  stop  the  ravages  of  Nature's 
devastating  forces  has  not  as  yet  suc- 
ceeded only  because  it  proposes  to  put  the 
general  welfare  above  speculation  and 
exploitation. 

This  condition  will  continue  until  the 
mass  of  the  people  of  the  United  States 
have  a  great  patriotic  awakening  and  take 
hold  of  the  duty  of  perpetuating  the  coun- 
try's natural  resources,  with  the  same  pa- 
triotic enthusiasm  that  they  would  fight 
a  foreign  invader. 

Let  us  not  deceive  ourselves.  The  ma- 
jority of  the  people  of  the  United  States 
are  as  apathetic  and  indifferent  to  the 
great  national  questions  involved  in  the 
preservation  of  our  forests  and  water 
supplies,  and  of  the  fertility  of  our  fields, 
—  in  the  protection  of  our  river  valleys 
from  floods,  —  in  the  defense  of  the  whole 
Western  half  of  the  United  States  against 
the  inroads  of  the  desert,  —  in  the  pro- 
tection of  the  mountain  ridges  of  the 
Eastern  half  of  the  United  States  from 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        95 

deforestation,  —  and  in  the  protection  of 
our  valleys  from  the  fate  which  has  be- 
fallen the  valleys  of  China,  as  were  the 
Chinese  through  the  long  centuries  during 
which  the  grinding,  destructive  forces  of 
Nature  were  devastating  their  country 
and  bringing  famine  and  ruin  to  millions 
of  the  people. 

Let  us  heed  the  lesson  of  China,  and 
before  it  is  too  late  enlist  the  National 
Construction  Reserve  to  combat  this 
menace  which  threatens  the  welfare  of  our 
people  —  grapple  with  floods  in  the  lower 
valleys  and  with  floods  in  the  mountain 
valleys;  with  forest  fires  and  with  forest 
denudation;  with  blighting  drouth  and 
with  desert  sands. 

Let  us  recognize  that  our  first  duty  to 
ourselves  and  to  our  country  is  to  preserve 
the  nation  by  preserving  the  resources 
within  the  nation,  without  which  the 
human  race  must  perish  from  the  surface 
of  the  earth. 

Once  this  great  fundamental  need  is 
recognized  for  protecting  the  nation's  re- 
sources and  protecting  the  people  by  pre- 
serving the  means  whereby  the  people  live, 


96  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

a  national  system  for  bringing  into  action 
concerted  human  effort  and  constructive 
energy  will  be  organized. 

It  will  be  a  system  that  will  substitute 
for  the  patriotism,  the  inspiration,  and 
the  victories  of  war  a  higher  patriotism, 
a  more  splendid  inspiration,  and  a  more 
glorious  victory.  That  victory  of  peace 
which  the  people  of  the  United  States 
will  finally  win  will  be  a  greater  achieve- 
ment than  anything  which  ever  has  or 
ever  can  be  accomplished  by  warfare. 

This  nation  can  readily  manufacture  for 
itself,  and  store  away  in  its  arsenals  and 
warehouses,  all  the  arms  and  equipment, 
all  the  munitions  of  war  that  we  would 
need  to  conduct  a  victorious  war  against 
any  nation  of  the  world.  It  could  train 
sufficient  officers,  without  any  increase  of 
our  military  expenditures,  to  lead  an  army 
large  enough  to  successfully  repel  any  in- 
vasion that  might  ever  be  attempted  in 
any  part  of  the  United  States.  In  the 
event  of  a  foreign  invasion,  what  would 
we  need  that  we  would  not  have,  and  could 
not  get,  at  least,  not  quick  enough  to  save 
ourselves  from  a  stupendous  disaster? 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        97 

We  would  need  and  could  not  get  men, 
—  trained  men,  —  men  hardened  and  in- 
ured to  the  demands  of  military  service  in 
the  field.  That  is  the  one  and  only  thing 
we  would  lack.  All  the  rest  of  the  prob- 
lem would  be  easy  of  solution. 

To  undertake  to  enlist  a  militia  of  a 
million  men  in  the  United  States  would 
not  supply  this  need.  The  most  vital  of 
all  the  many  elements  of  weakness  in 
militia,  especially  in  this  country  to-day, 
would  be  the  total  lack  of  physical  stamina 
and  hardihood  in  the  men  themselves. 
Of  what  use  are  soldiers  who  can  shoot, 
in  these  days  of  modern  warfare,  unless 
they  can  also  dig  trenches  and  endure 
hardships  which  are  to  the  ordinary  man 
impossible  and  inconceivable  of  being 
borne? 

This  necessity  for  men,  trained  and  hard- 
ened men,  men  inured  to  the  hardships  of 
military  service,  would  be  even  greater  in 
this  country  in  the  event  of  a  war  than  in 
any  European  country,  because  of  the 
more  primitive  condition  of  the  country. 
Vast  areas  of  the  United  States  are  unin- 
habited and  waterless.  The  climate  varies 


98  OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

from  the  intolerable  heat,  to  those  not 
accustomed  to  it,  of  the  southwestern 
deserts,  to  the  freezing  blizzards  of  the 
North. 

How  are  we  to  supply  this  need  for  men 
trained  and  toughened  to  every  hardship 
that  must  be  borne  by  a  soldier  fighting 
under  our  flag  in  time  of  war?  The  an- 
swer is,  by  enlisting  them  under  the  same 
flag  to  do  the  arduous  work  of  peace, 
which  will  harden  them  for  the  work  of 
war,  if  they  are  ever  needed  in  that  field 
of  action. 

How  many  of  our  people  are  there  who 
realize  the  work  that  is  being  done  for 
Uncle  Sam,  every  day  in  the  year,  by  the 
few  men  who  are  giving  themselves,  in 
a  spirit  of  patriotism  equal  to  that  of  any 
soldier,  to  the  field  work  of  the  Forest 
Service,  to  building  forest  fire  trails,  to 
fighting  forest  fires.  They  give  warning 
nowadays  of  a  forest  fire,  as  the  people  of 
the  Scottish  border  gave  warning  of  an 
invasion  in  the  Olden  days.  When  an 
invading  force  was  coming  up  from  the 
South  a  warning  was  flashed  across  Scot- 
land from  the  Solway  to  the  Tweed  with 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        99 

a  line  of  balefires  that  flamed  into  the 
night  from  the  turrets  of  their  castles. 
It  was  a  call  to  conflict.  It  put  men  on 
their  mettle.  So  a  call  to  fight  a  forest 
fire  is  a  call  to  conflict  and  puts  men  on 
their  mettle  for  a  combat  with  the  on- 
coming sweep  of  the  devouring  fire. 

Would  not  the  men  who  are  inured  to 
the  work  of  making  surveys  across  rugged 
mountains,  and  to  quarrying  the  rock, 
laying  the  stone,  digging  the  canals,  and 
doing  all  the  hard  physical  work  that 
must  be  done  by  the  men  who  have 
built  the  great  reservoirs  and  canals  con- 
structed by  the  Reclamation  Service,  be 
toughened  and  hardened  by  it  and  fitted 
to  dig  trenches  in  actual  warfare,  as 
they  have  been  digging  them  in  Belgium, 
France,  Prussia,  and  Poland? 

For  the  hard  and  trying  physical  work 
of  war  there  could  be  no  better  training 
than  to  do  the  labor  for  which  the  Rec- 
lamation Service  has  paid  out  millions  of 
dollars  in  the  last  ten  years. 

The  surveyors  of  the  Land  Department, 
the  topographers  of  the  Geological  Sur- 
vey, the  men  in  the  field  in  every  branch 


100         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

of  Uncle  Sam's  service,  who  are  winning 
for  this  nation  its  greatest  victories,  the 
victories  of  peace,  are  by  that  work 
physically  developed  into  the  very  best 
and  most  efficient  type  of  strong  and 
rugged  manhood  —  the  stuff  of  which 
soldiers  must  be  made. 

As  a  nation  we  must  recognize  this  all 
important  fact,  and  avail  ourselves  of  it. 
We  must  build  at  least  one  branch  of 
a  Reserve  that  would  constitute  an  ade- 
quate organized  system  of  national  de- 
fense on  this  foundation: 

That  all  government  work  shall  be  done 
by  day's  work  and  none  by  contract. 

That  every  dollar  that  is  paid  out  by 
Uncle  Sam  for  the  doing  of  constructive 
government  work,  which  could  be  tem- 
porarily suspended  in  time  of  war,  shall 
be  paid  to  a  man  who  had  been  regularly 
enlisted  in  a  Construction  Reserve  for  the 
purpose  of  doing  this  work.  That  those 
men  shall  be  trained  to  do  that  work,  and 
paid  for  doing  it,  exactly  as  though  no 
other  object  existed.  And  that  every  man 
so  enlisted  shall  be  liable  instantly  to  mili- 
tary service  if  the  need  should  arise,  by 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      101 

reason  of  our  country  being  involved  in 
war  with  any  other  nation. 

Every  man  employed  in  that  service 
should  be  enlisted  for  a  term  of  from  three 
to  five  years  and  trained  in  every  way 
necessary  to  fit  him  to  perform  the  duties 
of  a  soldier  and  to  endure  the  hardships 
of  a  soldier's  life  in  the  event  of  war. 

The  Forest  Service  is  now  absurdly  and 
pitifully  inadequate  to  the  needs  of  the 
country.  With  the  exception  of  small 
areas  recently  acquired  in  the  White 
Mountain  and  Appalachian  regions,  its 
work  is  chiefly  in  the  western  half  of  the 
United  States. 

The  work  of  the  Forest  Service  should 
be  enlarged  to  meet  the  needs  of  the 
entire  country.  They  should  reforest 
every  denuded  mountain  side,  and  plant 
millions  upon  millions  of  acres  of  forests 
in  every  State  in  the  United  States.  That 
work  should  go  on  until  in  every  State 
the  matured  forests  are  ample  to  provide 
for  all  its  needs  for  wood  or  timber. 

The  work  of  the  Reclamation  Service, 
instead  of  being  confined  to  the  West 
only,  should  be  extended  to  the  entire 


102         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

United  States.  It  should  be  made  to 
include  reclamation  by  drainage  and  by 
protection  from  overflow  just  as  it  now 
includes  reclamation  by  irrigation.  Ir- 
rigation systems  should  be  constructed 
and  maintained  for  the  purpose  of  demon- 
strating the  value  of  water  to  increase 
plant  growth,  not  only  in  the  arid  regions, 
but  in  every  State,  East  as  well  as 
West. 

Every  acre  reclaimed  should  bear  the 
burden  of  the  benefit  it  received  from  the 
work  of  the  national  government  and 
pay  its  proportion  of  the  cost  of  reclama- 
tion. The  entire  investment  of  the  gov- 
ernment should  be  repaid  with  interest. 
The  annual  charge  should  include  interest 
and  a  sinking  fund  that  would  return  the 
capital  invested,  with  interest,  within  fifty 
years.  The  original  plan  of  the  National 
Reclamation  Act  for  a  repayment  in  ten 
years  without  interest  was  wrong.  It 
placed  an  immediate  burden  on  the  settler 
that  was  too  heavy  to  be  practicable.  The 
Extension  Amendment  was  likewise  wrong, 
because  no  provision  was  made  for  in- 
terest. The  indebtedness  should  have 


THE   PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      103 

been  capitalized  at  a  very  low  rate  of  in- 
terest under  some  plan  similar  to  the  Brit- 
ish System  in  India.  The  future  success 
of  reclamation  work  by  the  national  gov- 
ernment requires  that  the  investment  shall 
be  returned  with  interest. 

In  every  State  the  works  should  be 
built,  in  cooperation  with  the  States, 
municipalities,  and  local  districts,  that  are 
necessary  to  extend  to  the  people  of  every 
valley,  from  Maine  to  California,  from 
Washington  to  Florida,  and  from  Montana 
to  Texas,  complete  assurance  of  protec- 
tion from  the  flood  menace  in  all  years. 
The  floods  which  have  in  the  past  brought 
such  appalling  catastrophes  upon  whole 
valleys  and  communities,  at  a  cost  of 
millions  if  not  billions  of  dollars,  should  be 
harnessed  and  controlled  and  turned  from 
demons  of  destruction  into  food-produc- 
ers and  commerce-carriers. 

If  Japan  should  land  an  army  on  the 
Pacific  Coast  would  we  leave  it  to  future 
generations  to  defend  us  against  that  in- 
vasion? It  is  equally  monstrous  and 
wrong  for  this  generation  to  leave  to 
future  generations  the  building  of  the 


104         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

great  works  of  defense  necessary  to  check 
the  invasion  of  our  valleys  by  disastrous 
floods,  or  the  destruction  of  our  forests 
by  the  ravages  of  fire. 

Whenever  a  forest  fire  breaks  out  any- 
where, there  should  be  an  adequate  force 
of  men  enlisted  in  Uncle  Sam's  service 
for  that  purpose,  to  promptly  extinguish 
it.  It  is  as  wrong  to  leave  such  work 
wholly  to  local  initiative  or  action  as  it 
would  be  wrong  to  leave  to  the  States  the 
question  of  national  defense  from  possible 
attack  by  other  nations.  Cooperation 
with  the  States  there  should  always  be, 
and  this  the  States  will  willingly  extend. 
Of  that  we  need  have  no  fear.  But  the 
initiative  must  be  taken,  and  the  basic 
plans  made  and  furnished,  by  the  national 
government.  Otherwise  the  work  will 
never  be  done  that  is  necessary  to  defend 
the  nation  against  Nature's  invasions  — 
against  forest  fires  and  floods,  against 
drouth  and  overflow,  against  denudation 
and  erosion,  and  against  the  slow  but  in- 
exorable encroachments  of  the  Desert  in 
the  arid  region.  The  States  will  not  and 
cannot  do  it.  It  requires  the  overshadow- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      105 

ing  authority,  initiative  and  financial  re- 
sources of  the  national  government. 

The  Office  of  Public  Roads  of  the  na- 
tional government  should  be  made  a 
Service  for  Construction,  like  the  Forest 
Service  and  the  Reclamation  Service. 
Whatever  the  national  government  does 
to  aid  in  the  construction  of  highways  it 
should  do  by  building  them  itself,  whether 
they  be  built  as  models,  to  stimulate  local 
interest,  or  as  object  lessons  to  the  States 
through  which  they  run,  or  as  great 
national  highways  of  travel,  linking  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  and  the  Great 
Lakes  to  the  Gulf  in  a  continuous  system 
of  roads  as  magnificent  as  those  of  ancient 
Rome.  In  time  of  war  they  would  be 
military  highways.  In  time  of  peace 
they  would  be  national  highways  that 
would  be  traveled  by  multitudes  of  our 
people. 

A  Waterway  Service  for  Construction 
should  be  created,  wholly  separate  and 
apart  from  the  War  Department  or  any  of 
its  engineers  or  employees,  to  build  for 
this  country  as  complete  a  system  of 
waterways  as  now  exists  in  any  of  the 


106         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

countries  of  Europe  —  real  waterways, 
waterways  built  to  float  boats  on  and  to 
carry  inland  commerce.  Waterways  must 
be  built  for  commerce  and  to  constitute 
a  national  waterway  system.  The  false 
pretense  must  stop  of  spending  money  on 
waterways  merely  as  a  club  to  lower 
railroad  rates.  That  policy  of  indirection 
and  sham  has  prompted  the  waste  of  too 
many  millions  of  dollars  of  the  people's 
money  in  this  country. 

In  this  one  great  interrelated  and  inter- 
dependent work  of  forest  and  water  con- 
servation, of  reclaiming  land  by  irrigation, 
drainage,  and  protection  from  overflow,  of 
regulating  and  developing  the  flow  of  rivers 
for  power  development  and  navigation, 
and  doing  everything  necessary  for  the 
protection  of  every  flood-menaced  com- 
munity and  valley,  enough  men  should  be 
enlisted  in  the  different  services  through 
which  the  work  is  to  be  done,  to  do  this 
work  with  all  the  expedition  required  by 
the  welfare  of  the  people  at  large  of  this 
generation. 

This  would  necessitate  the  employment 
of  an  ultimate  total  of  a  million  men, 


THE   PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      107 

scattered  throughout  every  State  of  the 
Union.  Every  dollar  paid  to  them  in 
wages,  and  every  dollar  expended  in  con- 
nection with  their  work,  would  prevent  de- 
vastation or  create  values  for  the  nation 
immensely  larger  than  the  total  expendi- 
ture. The  values  created  and  benefits 
assured  in  time  of  peace  would  alone  jus- 
tify the  expenditure.  The  value  to  the 
nation  of  such  a  great  Reserve  Force 
of  trained  and  hardened  men  in  time  of 
war  would  again  justify  the  expenditure. 
But  in  the  initial  expenditure  both  ends 
would  be  attained. 

What  we  pay  out  from  year  to  year  for 
the  support  of  our  Standing  Army  and 
our  Navy,  after  each  year  has  passed,  is 
wasted  and  gone.  It  is  too  high  a  rate  to 
pay  for  insurance,  which  in  fact  is  no  in- 
surance at  all  against  a  possible  war.  If 
such  a  war  should  come,  the  Standing 
Army  and  the  Navy  would  be  hopelessly 
inadequate  for  our  protection. 

The  system  must  be  changed.  The 
Standing  Army,  without  any  increased  ex- 
penditure, must  be  made  a  training  school 
for  all  the  officers  needed  for  a  Reserve  of 


108         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

at  least  a  million  men.  This  should  be 
done  immediately!  The  day  is  at  hand 
when  the  nation  must  take  time  by  the 
forelock  and  in  time  of  peace  prepare  for 
war,  in  a  sane,  intelligent,  adequate,  and 
effective  way.  If  it  is  not  done  we  run 
the  grave  risk,  with  the  possibility  of  war 
always  facing  us,  of  being  subjected  by 
our  national  indifference  to  the  fearful  cost 
of  such  a  conflict  if  we  were  forced  into  it 
unprepared. 

Shall  we  do  this,  and  get  back  the  full 
value  of  every  dollar  expended,  or  shall  we 
face  the  ever  growing  possibility  of  a  war 
of  one  or  two  or  three  years  duration, 
costing  us  in  cash  outlay  two  or  three  bil- 
lion dollars  a  year? 

It  will  be  argued  against  this  plan  for 
an  enlisted  National  Construction  Reserve 
that  the  men  would  have  no  military 
training  in  the  event  that  the  need  should 
instantly  arise  for  utilizing  them  as  sol- 
diers. That  objection  should  be  removed, 
by  applying  to  the  entire  Construction 
Service,  the  Swiss  system  of  military  train- 
ing for  a  fixed  period  during  each  year, 
long  enough  to  train  a  man  for  the  work 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      109 

of  a  soldier,  but  not  long  enough  to  de- 
moralize or  ruin  him  as  a  man  or  as  a  citi- 
zen by  the  life  of  the  barracks  or  the 
camp. 

The  men  enlisted  in  the  Construction 
Service,  and  entirely  under  civil  control 
in  all  the  work  they  would  do  for  ten 
months  of  the  year,  could  be  given  mili- 
tary instruction  during  the  remaining  two 
months.  That  would  not  bring  upon  the 
people  of  this  country  any  of  the  evils  that 
would  result  from  maintaining  a  Stand- 
ing Army  large  enough  to  serve  as  an 
army  of  defense  in  the  event  of  a  foreign 
invasion.  And  yet,  with  such  a  trained 
Reserve  Force  already  enlisted,  the  United 
States  would  be  prepared  to  instantly  put 
into  the  field  an  army  of  trained  and  hard- 
ened soldiers.  Its  Reserve  Force  would 
be  so  large  that  the  mere  existence  of  that 
force  would  make  this  nation  one  of  the 
strongest  nations  of  the  world  in  any  mili- 
tary contest.  We  might  then  rest  assured 
that  other  nations  would  hesitate  to  at- 
tack us  or  invade  our  territory.  That 
possibility  of  danger  would  be.  absolutely 
removed  if  the  plan  which  will  be  later 


110         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

outlined  for  the  creation  of  a  National 
Homecroft  Reserve  were  adopted  as  an 
additional  means  of  national  defense. 

It  will  again  be  argued  that  we  have  no 
system  of  training  officers  for  an  army 
of  any  such  magnitude.  That  is  quite 
true.  It  is  an  objection  that  must  be 
met  and  overcome.  The  War  Department 
should  be  required  to  train  and  provide 
these  officers .  The  military  posts  on  which 
such  great  sums  have  been  spent  for  polit- 
ical reasons,  and  so  few  of  which  are  located 
where  they  should  be  for  real  military 
reasons,  should  be  turned  into  military 
training  schools  for  officers. 

The  rank  and  file  of  the  regular  army 
should  be  drawn  from  a  class  of  men  who 
could  be  trained  in  those  schools  in  all  the 
necessary  knowledge  of  military  science  to 
qualify  them  to  be  officers.  They  might 
be  private  soldiers  in  the  regular  army, 
and  at  the  same  time  commissioned  or 
non-commissioned  officers  in  the  Reserve. 
A  regular  army  of  50,000,  if  established 
on  a  proper  basis,  would  be  able  to  supply 
officers  for  a  Reserve  of  1,000,000  men. 

Every   private   soldier   in    the   regular 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      111 

army  should  be  a  man  fit  to  become  an 
officer,  and  in  process  of  training  with  that 
object  in  view.  And  when  that  training 
had  been  completed,  he  should  be  as- 
signed to  his  detail  or  his  command  in  the 
Reserve.  A  private  soldier  in  time  of  peace 
in  the  regular  army,  he  would  instantly 
become  an  officer  in  the  Reserve  in  time  of 
war. 

The  system  should  contemplate  the 
retention  in  the  government  service,  in 
some  constructive  capacity,  of  every  man 
once  trained  as  an  officer  and  capable  of 
rendering  service  as  such  in  case  of  war. 
It  is  wrong  to  expect  such  men  to  return 
to  private  life  with  a  military  string  tied 
to  them,  and  take  up  the  complicated 
duties  of  a  commercial  career,  with  the 
family  obligations  that  they  ought  to 
assume  resting  upon  them,  without  pro- 
viding for  the  contingencies  that  a  call 
for  an  immediate  return  to  active  service 
would  create. 

Every  soldier  trained  as  an  officer  should 
be  retained  in  the  government  service, 
either  civil  or  military,  under  conditions 
which  would  make  it  possible  for  him  to 


OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

establish  a  family  and  a  home,  and  at  the 
same  time  be  certain  that  his  family  would 
suffer  no  privation  if  he  were  called  to 
active  service  in  the  event  of  war.  This  is 
not  the  place  to  work  out  the  details  of 
such  a  plan,  but  it  is  entirely  practicable. 
The  details  should  be  worked  out  by  the 
War  Department. 

If  the  people  will  provide  a  Reserve  of 
enlisted  men  under  civil  control,  doing 
the  work  of  peace  in  time  of  peace,  and 
ready  for  the  work  of  war  in  time  of  war, 
it  would  be  a  confession  of  incompetence 
for  the  War  Department  to  question  their 
capacity  to  train  officers  for  this  reserve. 
Doubtless,  however,  some  of  the  present 
regular  army  idols  would  have  to  be 
shattered. 

One  of  the  most  serious  aspects  of  our 
unpreparedness  for  any  military  conflict 
lies  in  the  incompleteness  of  the  present 
system.  As  the  author  of  "The  Valor  of 
Ignorance"  well  says,  we  have  no  military 
system.  We  have  no  means  of  training 
an  adequate  number  of  officers  or  holding 
them  in  readiness  for  service  during  a  long 
period  of  peace.  Provision  should  be  made 


THE  PATRIOTISM   OF  PEACE      113 

immediately  for  the  War  Department  to 
train  these  officers. 

The  plan  outlined  would  eliminate  the 
element  of  weakness  that  would  result 
from  an  effort  to  utilize  for  national  de- 
fense officers  having  no  training  except 
that  acquired  in  the  State  militia.  In  the 
plan  advocated,  every  officer  needed  for 
an  army  of  a  million  men  in  the  field  would 
be  ready  at  any  moment  to  step  into  the 
service  and  would  have  been  trained  in 
the  work  by  the  military  machine  of  which 
he  would  by  that  act  become  a  part. 

The  army  should  be  cut  away  entirely 
from  all  participation  in  the  civil  affairs 
of  the  country,  and  should  devote  itself 
to  its  legitimate  field  of  getting  ready  for 
a  possible  war  and  fighting  it  for  us  if  it 
should  ever  come.  Instead  of  blocking 
the  way  for  the  adoption  of  a  compre- 
hensive plan  for  river  regulation  and 
flood  protection  throughout  the  country 
for  fear  of  interference  with  their  exist- 
ing privileges  and  authority,  their  work 
should  be  concentrated  on  the  field  they 
are  created  to  fill.  That  field  is  the  pro- 
tection of  the  country  from  internal  dis- 


114         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

turbance  or  external  invasion.  The  civil 
affairs  of  the  country  should  be  conducted 
through  organized  machinery  created  for 
civil  purposes,  and  not  complicated  with 
the  red  tape  and  rule  of  thumb  methods 
of  the  War  Department.  For  this  work, 
initiative,  constructive  imagination  and 
scientific  genius  must  be  evoked,  and  these 
the  Army  has  not.  So  long  as  they  cling 
to  this  field  of  work,  just  that  long  will 
progress  be  delayed,  and  the  legitimate 
work  of  the  Army  be  neglected. 


CHAPTER  V 

J  HE  system  of  national  defense  for  every 
nation  must  be  adapted  to  the  conditions 
and  needs  of  that  nation.  All  nations  are 
not  alike.  Each  has  its  distinct  problems. 
The  solution,  in  each  case,  must  be  fitted 
to  the  nation  and  its  people.  There  is  no 
system  now  in  operation  in  any  other  coun- 
try that  could  be  fitted  as  a  whole  to  the 
United  States.  A  system  must  be  devised 
that  will  be  applicable  to  the  needs  and  con- 
ditions of  this  country. 

The  Swiss  system  is  ideal  for  Switzer- 
land. A  mountaineer  is  a  soldier  by 
nature.  Switzerland  has  a  soldierly  citi- 
zenry and  can  mobilize  it  instantly  as  a 
citizen  soldiery.  The  Swiss  system  would 
have  fitted  Belgium  in  spots,  but  not  as  a 
whole.  It  is  adapted  to  a  rural  people, 
who  are  individually  independent  and  self- 
sustaining,  but  not  to  a  manufacturing 
community,  where  the  people  cannot  exist 
without  the  factory,  or  the  factory  without 
the  people. 


116         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

It  would  be  impracticable  to  adopt  the 
Swiss  system  as  a  whole  in  the  United 
States.  It  would  fit  some  communities 
but  not  others.  Military  training  would 
be  beneficial  to  all  boys,  but  our  public 
school  system  is  controlled  by  the  States, 
counties,  and  local  districts,  and  not  by 
the  nation.  To  adapt  it  to  the  Swiss  sys- 
tem of  universal  military  training  in  the 
public  schools  will  require  a  propaganda 
to  educate  public  sentiment  that  will  ne- 
cessitate years  of  patient  work.  A  gen- 
eration will  pass  before  we  will  be  able  to 
mobilize  a  force  for  national  defense  from 
Reservists  who  will  have  received  their 
military  training  in  the  public  schools. 

A  system  of  national  defense  would  fail 
of  its  purpose  if  it  crippled  the  industries 
of  the  country  by  depriving  them  of  the 
labor  necessary  to  their  operation.  In 
the  United  States,  one  of  the  most  urgent 
reasons  for  having  an  automatically  acting 
system  of  national  defense  perfectly  or- 
ganized in  advance  and  ready  in  case  of 
emergency,  is  to  insure  the  continuance  of 
the  industries  of  the  country  without  in- 
terruption, and  to  prevent  any  industrial 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      117 

depression  or  interference  with  the  pros- 
perity of  the  country.  A  system  of  na- 
tional defense  would  fail  of  its  purpose  if 
it  crippled  industries  by  drawing  away 
their  labor. 

It  would  cause  serious  industrial  de- 
rangement to  mobilize  an  army  of  citizen 
soldiers  from  men  already  enlisted  in  the 
ranks  of  labor  in  mill,  shop,  factory,  or 
mine.  Besides  that,  the  majority  of 
them  have  families,  and  live  from  hand  to 
mouth  with  nothing  between  them  and 
starvation  but  the  pay  envelope  Saturday 
night.  The  impracticability  of  recruiting 
soldiers  or  mobilizing  a  reserve  force  from 
wage  earners  or  clerical  employees  with 
families  dependent  on  their  earnings  for 
their  living,  must  always  be  borne  in  mind. 

In  Switzerland,  the  active,  out-of-door 
life  of  the  people  makes  the  majority  of 
them  rugged  and  vigorous.  They  have 
sturdy  legs  and  strong  arms.  They  are 
sound,  "wind,  limb,  and  body."  They 
are  already  inured  to  the  work  of  a  sol- 
dier's life  and  its  duties,  any  moment  they 
may  be  called  to  the  colors. 

In  this  country  the  life  of  the  apart- 


118         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

ments,  flats,  and  tenements,  and  the  frivo- 
lous, immoral,  and  deteriorating  influences 
and  evil  environments  of  congested  cities, 
are  sapping  the  vitality  of  our  people,  and 
rapidly  transforming  them  into  a  race  of 
mental  and  physical  weaklings  and  de- 
generates. Even  now  the  great  majority 
of  them  utterly  lack  the  physical  hardi- 
hood and  vigor  without  which  a  soldier 
would  not  be  worth  the  cost  of  his  arms 
and  equipment. 

It  would  overtax  most  city  clerks  and 
factory  workers  to  walk  to  and  from  the 
football  or  baseball  games  that  constitute 
our  chief  national  pastime.  About  the 
only  thing  to  which  they  are  really  inured 
is  to  sit  on  benches,  for  hours  at  a  time, 
and  to  yell,  loud  and  long,  to  add  zest  to 
games  that  are  being  played  by  others. 
It  has  been  most  truly  said  that  "We  are 
not  a  nation  of  athletes,  we  are  a  nation 
of  Rooters."  Many  of  our  devotees  of 
commercialized  sport  would  perhaps  be 
able  to  yell  loud  enough  to  scare  the  enemy 
off  in  case  of  war,  but  they  would  not  be 
able  to  march  to  the  battlefields  where 
this  soldierly  aid  might  be  required.  A 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      119 

special  automobile  service  would  have  to 
be  provided  for  their  transportation. 

Think  of  this  the  next  time  you  see  a 
howling  mob  of  fans  or  rooters  at  a  base- 
ball or  football  game,  and  "Lest  we  for- 
get," think  also  of  England's  lesson  when 
she  undertook  to  enlist  soldiers  from  such 
a  citizenry.  Then  consider  very  seriously 
whether  you  don't  think  we  had  better 
in  this  country  create  some  communities 
of  real  men,  like  the  Homecrofters  of 
Scotland.  There  are  many  rural  neigh- 
borhoods in  Scotland  from  which  every 
man  of  military  age  enlisted  when  the 
call  came  for  soldiers  to  fight  to  sustain 
Britain's  Empire  power  in  this  last  great 
war. 

Do  we  want  a  citizen  soldiery  composed 
of  such  men  as  those  who,  since  1794,  have 
served  in  the  ranks  of  the  Gordon  High- 
landers, or  composed  of  such  men  as  the 
Gardeners  of  Japan,  who  wrested  Port 
Arthur  from  the  Russians,  or  do  we  want 
to  depend  on  a  national  militia  of  citizen 
soldiers  enrolled  from  among  the  pink- 
cheeked  dudelets  and  mush-faced  weak- 
lings from  the  apartments,  flats,  and 


120         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

tenements  of  our  congested  cities  or  fac- 
tory towns,  whose  highest  ambition  is  to 
smoke  cigarettes,  ape  a  fashion  plate,  or 
stand  and  gape  at  a  baseball  score  on  a 
bulletin  board?  They  like  that  sort  of 
sport,  because  they  can  enjoy  it  standing 
still.  It  necessitates  no  physical  exertion. 
If  they  could  ever  be  induced  to  enlist  as 
soldiers,  their  feet  would  be  too  sore  to 
walk  any  farther,  before  they  had  marched 
forty  miles.  A  day's  work  with  a  shovel, 
digging  a  trench,  would  send  most  of 
them  to  the  hospital  with  strained  muscles 
and  lame  backs.  And  yet,  trench-digging 
seems  to  be  the  most  important  part  of 
a  soldier's  duty  in  these  days  of  civil- 
ized warfare,  when  the  machinery  for 
murder  by  wholesale  has  been  so  splen- 
didly perfected. 

If  we  are  going  to  have  a  citizen  soldiery 
in  this  country,  the  first  thing  we  had 
better  set  about  is  to  produce  a  soldierly 
citizenry  —  a  race  of  men  with  the  phys- 
ical vigor  of  the  Swiss  Mountaineers,  or 
of  the  men  who  founded  our  own  nation, 
who  fought  the  battles  of  the  Revolution, 
who  dyed  with  their  red  blood  the  white 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE 


snows  of  Valley  Forge,  who  marched 
through  floods  and  floating  ice  up  to  their 
armpits  to  the  capture  of  Fort  Vincennes, 
who  floated  down  the  Ohio  River  on  rafts 
or  walked  down  the  Wilderness  Road 
with  Boone,  who  fought  Indians,  broke 
prairie,  traversed  the  waterless  deserts, 
and  conquered  the  wilderness  from  the 
crest  of  the  Alleghenies  to  the  shores  of 
the  Pacific,  sustained  by  the  strong  women 
who  stood  by  their  sides  and  shared  their 
hardships. 

The  weakness  of  the  United  States  as  a 
nation  to-day,  a  weakness  much  more 
deeply  rooted  than  mere  military  unpre- 
paredness,  lies  in  the  fact  that  as  a  nation 
we  have  no  national  ideals  that  rise  above 
commercialism,  no  national  ambitions  be- 
yond making  or  controlling  money,  which 
the  devotees  of  Mammon  delight  to  call 
"Practicing  the  Arts  of  Peace." 

Manhood  and  womanhood  are  being 
utterly  sacrificed  to  mere  money-making. 
National  wealth  is  calculated  in  units  of 
dollars,  and  not  in  units  of  citizenship. 
To  accumulate  wealth  is  the  controlling 
ambition  of  our  people,  and  not  to  per- 


OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

petuate  the  strong  racial  type  from  which 
we  are  all  descended. 

Not  only  is  the  original  sturdy  American 
Anglo-Saxon  stock  being  degenerated,  but 
we  are  bringing  to  our  shores  millions  of 
the  strong  and  vigorous  races  from  South- 
ern and  Eastern  Europe,  and  crowding 
them  into  tenements  and  slums  to  rot, 
both  physically  and  mentally.  That  can- 
cer is  eating  away  the  heart  and  corrupt- 
ing the  very  lifeblood  of  this  nation. 
Those  conditions  would  soon  be  changed 
if  the  mass  of  our  people,  and  particu- 
larly Organized  Capital  and  Organized 
Labor,  would  place  Humanity  above 
Money. 

Capital  thinks  only  of  Dividends. 
Labor  thinks  only  of  Wages.  Neither 
gives  the  slightest  heed  to  making  this  a 
nation  of  Rural  Homes  and  thereby  per- 
petuating the  racial  strength  and  virility 
of  the  people  of  the  nation.  That  can 
only  be  done  by  providing  a  right  life 
environment  for  all  wageworkers  and 
their  families,  particularly  the  children. 
A  home  for  a  family  is  not  entitled  to  be 
called  a  home,  unless  it  is  both  an  individ- 


THE   PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      123 

ual  home  and  a  garden  home.  It  must  be 
a  Homecroft  —  a  home  with  an  abundance 
of  sunshine  and  fresh  air,  in  decent,  sani- 
tary surroundings  —  a  home  with  a  piece 
of  ground  about  it  from  which  in  time  of 
stress  or  unemployment  the  family  can 
get  its  living  by  its  labor,  and  thereby 
enjoy  economic  independence. 

Industry  will  destroy  humanity  unless 
a  national  system  of  life  is  universally 
adopted  that  will  prevent  racial  deteriora- 
tion. The  only  way  that  can  be  done  is 
by  a  nation-wide  abandonment  of  the 
artificial  and  degenerate  life  of  the  con- 
gested cities.  The  people  must  be  edu- 
cated and  trained  so  that  they  will  desert 
the  flats  and  tenements  as  rats  would 
abandon  a  sinking  ship. 

Our  first  great  national  undertaking 
should  be  the  creation  of  a  national  sys- 
tem of  life  that  will  realize  the  ideals  of 
the  Homecroft  Slogan: 

"Every  Child  in  a  Garden, 
Every  Mother  in  a  Homecroft,  and 
Individual  Industrial  Independence 
For  every  Worker  in  a 
Home  of  his  own  on  the  Land." 


124         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

Unless  the  united  power  of  the  people 
as  a  whole  is  soon  put  forth  to  check  the 
physical  and  racial  deterioration  now  going 
on  at  such  an  appalling  rate  among  the 
masses  of  our  wageworkers,  —  the  result 
of  the  wrong  conditions  that  surround 
their  lives,  —  nothing  can  prevent  the 
eventual  ruin  of  this  nation.  We  are  al- 
ready on  the  downward  course  along  which 
Rome  swept  to  the  abyss  of  human  de- 
generacy in  which  she  was  at  last  de- 
stroyed by  the  same  causes  that  are  so 
widely  at  work  in  this  country  to-day. 

Employers  of  Labor  are  most  directly 
responsible  for  these  evil  conditions.  They 
cannot  shirk  that  responsibility.  They 
cannot  evade  the  fact  that  the  menace 
against  which  we  most  need  national  de- 
fense arises  from  the  degeneracy  that  we 
are  breeding  in  our  midst.  If  we  cannot 
do  both,  we  had  far  better  spend  our 
national  energies  and  revenues  in  fighting 
the  evils  that  are  rotting  our  citizenship, 
than  in  building  forts  and  fortifications 
or  maintaining  a  navy  and  an  army  for 
defense  against  the  remote  possibility  of 
attacks  by  other  nations. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE 


We  hear  much  of  the  danger  to  New 
York  from  such  an  attack.  New  York  is 
in  far  greater  danger  from  the  criminal, 
immoral,  evil,  and  degenerating  forces 
that  she  is  nursing  in  her  own  bosom  than 
she  is  from  any  military  force  that  might 
be  landed  on  our  shores  by  a  foreign 
invader.  The  enemies  she  has  most  to 
fear  are  her  own  Gunmen  and  Bomb- 
throwers;  Black-handers  and  White-Slav- 
ers; Apaches,  Dope  Fiends,  Gamblers, 
and  Gangsters;  Tenement  House  Land- 
lords; Out-of-  Works,  and  all  the  breeders 
of  poverty,  crime,  insanity,  disease,  and 
human  misery  that  are  rampant  in  her 
midst,  —  the  direct  result  of  the  system 
of  industry  and  human  life  which  she  has 
herself  created  and  for  which  she  alone 
is  responsible. 

This  is  no  overdrawn  picture.  It  is 
only  the  briefest  possible  outline  of  the 
evil  conditions  which  less  than  a  century 
of  the  Service  of  Mammon  has  bred  in 
that  mighty  metropolis.  Everyone  who 
reads  the  newspapers  which  reflect  the 
daily  events  of  New  York  City  will  appre- 
ciate how  impossible  it  is  to  portray  in 


126         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

words  the  depth  of  degradation  to  which 
a  great  mass  of  humanity  has  sunk  in  that 
modern  Babylon  —  rich  as  well  as  poor. 

The  invasion  that  New  York  City 
should  most  fear,  that  of  Vice  and  Crime 
and  Degeneracy,  has  been  accomplished. 
They  have  captured  the  outer  fortifica- 
tions and  are  intrenched  within  the  cita- 
del. The  Goths  are  not  at  the  gates,  - 
they  are  within  the  gates. 

Uncle  Sam  has  transformed  the  wild 
Apaches  of  the  Southwest  into  steady 
and  industrious  laborers  who  have  done 
yeoman  work  with  the  Construction  Corps 
of  the  Reclamation  Service  in  Arizona. 
New  York  is  now  breeding,  in  her  modern 
canyons  and  cliff  dwellings,  a  more  blood- 
thirsty, cruel,  and  treacherous  race  of 
Apaches  than  were  ever  bred  amid  the 
mountain  fastnesses  and  forbidding  des- 
erts of  the  Southwest. 

Do  not  these  domestic  enemies  consti- 
tute a  more  immediate  danger  than  any 
foreign  enemy? 

The  foreign  enemy,  with  whose  invasion 
the  Militarists  so  delight  to  harrow  our 
imaginations,  is  still  in  the  remote  dis- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE 


tance  —  a  future  possibility,  not  even  a 
probability  on  the  Atlantic  seacoast. 

The  greatest  merit  of  the  plan  for  national 
defense  advocated  in  this  book  is  that  it  will 
safeguard  against  danger  from  these  domestic 
enemies,  who  are  already  in  our  midst,  at 
the  same  time  that  it  will  safeguard,  in  the 
only  adequate  way  yet  proposed,  against  war 
or  any  possibility  of  a  foreign  invasion. 

Many  see  the  danger  of  a  social  or 
political  cataclysm  resulting  from  the 
saturnalia  of  degeneracy,  disease,  and 
crime  that  is  being  bred  by  tenement 
life  and  congested  cities.  Unfortunately 
they  see  no  remedy  for  it  but  a  stronger 
central  government  and  a  bigger  standing 
army. 

This  desire  for  a  standing  army  to  pro- 
tect against  internal  social  or  industrial 
disturbance  leads  to  enthusiastic  advo- 
cacy, on  any  pretext  whatever,  for  a  bigger 
army  and  navy  whenever  opportunity  is 
presented.  If  the  truth  were  known,  the 
majority  of  those  who  so  vigorously  ad- 
vocate a  bigger  and  still  bigger  army  and 
navy,  are  prompted  by  fear  of  an  enemy 
in  our  midst,  arising  from  human  degen- 


128         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

eracy  in  cities  or  from  social  or  labor 
conflicts,  more  than  by  any  danger  of 
conflict  with  another  nation. 

The  men  who  have  built  our  great  con- 
gested cities  have  undermined  the  pillars 
of  the  temple  of  our  national  strength 
and  safety.  Now  they  want  protection 
from  the  consequences  of  their  own  work, 
which  they  so  justly  fear.  They  want 
this  nation  to  adopt  the  Roman  System, 
which  finally  worked  Rome's  destruction. 
They  want  soldiers  hired  to  protect  them 
because  they  fear  the  consequences  of  the 
things  they  have  done,  just  to  make 
money,  and  they  cannot  protect  them- 
selves from  the  dangers  their  own  greed 
for  wealth,  at  any  cost  to  humanity,  has 
created. 

The  inevitable  result  of  the  establish- 
ment of  such  a  system  of  national  defense 
as  they  advocate  would  be  a  military 
oligarchy.  Combined  with  our  present 
money  oligarchy,  it  would  be  politically 
invincible.  In  some  great  internal  crisis 
or  social  and  political  disturbance,  all 
power  would  be  centralized  and  our  gov- 
ernment would  be  transformed  into  a  mili- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE 

tary  autocracy.  From  that  time  on  we 
would  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  Rome  to 
our  certain  doom  as  a  people  and  a 
nation. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  this  desire  for 
protection  from  internal  disturbance  by  a 
hired  standing  army  comes  from  the  very 
class  in  the  United  States  which  was,  at 
the  last,  in  Rome,  ground  between  the 
upper  and  the  nether  millstones  —  be- 
tween the  army  above  and  the  proletariat 
below  —  in  the  final  working  out  of  the 
Roman  System.  The  proscriptions  of  the 
Roman  Emperors,  to  propitiate  their 
armies,  are  forgotten  by  the  modern  patri- 
cians who  clamor  for  a  large  standing 
army. 

The  patrician  class  in  this  country,  who 
are  now  in  their  hearts  praying  for  a 
strong  centralized  military  government, 
—  patiently  and  persistently  planning  for 
it,  and  making  steady  progress,  too, : — 
are  the  very  class  whose  estates  were  con- 
fiscated, and  their  owners  proscribed  and 
executed  by  thousands  to  enable  the 
Roman  Emperors  to  appropriate  their 
wealth  and  from  that  source  satisfy  the 


130         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

demands  of  the  Army.  The  Army  had 
to  be  rewarded  for  their  services  in  con- 
ferring the  purple  on  the  Emperor,  which 
they  did  by  virtue  of  their  military  control 
of  the  government.  It  was  the  Army  who 
made  and  unmade  Emperors.  The  Em- 
perors bought  the  Army  with  money  and 
bribed  the  populace  with  feasts  and  games. 
The  money  to  do  both  was  obtained  by  the 
proscription  and  plunder  of  the  wealthy 
patricians,  the  same  class  which  in  our 
time  is  now  trying  so  hard  to  establish  a 
gilded  caste  in  New  York  and  other  great 
centers  of  wealth  and  a  strong  military 
government  for  this  nation. 

Whatever  system  of  national  defense  is 
to  be  adopted  in  the  United  States,  it 
must  be  a  system  in  which  the  people 
themselves,  as  citizens  and  not  as  pro- 
fessional soldiers,  furnish  the  human  ma- 
terial for  national  defense.  The  people 
must  control  our  army  of  citizen  soldiery 
so  absolutely  that  it  can  never  be  turned 
against  their  personal  liberties  or  property 
rights.  Let  us  heed  the  warning  of  Rome. 
It  is  none  too  soon.  Let  us  beware  of  either 
confiscation  or  proscription  as  an  evolu- 


THE   PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      131 

tion  from  a  military  government  to  a  mili- 
tary despotism. 

Switzerland  alone,  of  all  the  civilized 
nations,  and  the  smallest  of  them  all, 
stands  to-day  a  living  demonstration  of  the 
National  Spirit  and  the  National  System 
of  Universal  Service  to  their  Country 
that  should  be  adopted  by  all  the  nations 
of  the  world,  to  the  fullest  extent  that  it 
can  be  made  applicable  to  their  conditions. 
The  Swiss  System  provides  adequate  na- 
tional defense  by  the  entire  citizenship  of 
the  nation.  Any  subversion  of  the  people's 
liberties  through  the  power  of  the  Army  is 
impossible  because  the  people  themselves 
constitute  the  Army. 

Australia  has  already  adopted  the  Swiss 
System,  substantially,  and  in  consequence 
will  escape  the  danger  of  military  domi- 
nation which  will  fasten  itself  on  this 
country  if  our  system  of  national  defense 
is  to  consist  only  of  a  steadily  increasing 
standing  army.  If  we  are  to  escape  that 
danger  we  must  never  lose  sight  of  the 
chief  merit  of  the  Swiss  System,  which  is 
that  every  citizen  participates  in  it  and  is 
affected  by  it,  and  we  must  as  nearly  as 


132         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

possible  adapt  it  to  the  conditions  existing 
in  this  country.  There  are  many  lessons 
that  we  might  learn  from  the  Swiss  to  our 
great  national  advantage. 

If  the  Spirit  of  Switzerland,  the  self- 
reliant  independence  of  her  people,  and 
their  physical  and  mental  vigor,  individ- 
ually and  collectively,  her  national  motto 
"All  for  each  and  each  for  all,"  dominated 
a  nation  of  100,000,000  people,  like  the 
United  States,  with  an  area  of  2,973,890 
square  miles,  exclusive  of  Alaska,  as  it  does 
a  nation  of  something  less  than  4,000,000 
people,  with  an  area  of  only  15,976  square 
miles,  that  Spirit  and  that  System  of 
national  defense  would  soon  become  the 
universal  system  of  the  world. 

The  most  dangerous  military  system 
for  any  nation,  large  or  small,  is  a  stand- 
ing army  large  enough  to  invite  attack, 
but  not  strong  enough  to  repel  it.  That 
was  the  system  of  Belgium,  and  to  that 
fact  is  due  the  destruction  of  Belgium. 
It  is  the  present  system  of  the  United 
States.  The  most  striking  feature  of  our 
unpreparedness  for  war  is  the  fact  that  it 
would  be  hopelessly  impossible  to  defend 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      133 

ourselves  against  invasion  without  an 
army  so  huge  as  to  dwarf  our  present 
army  into  insignificance. 

The  Swiss  System  is  the  best  for  Switzer- 
land and  is  no  doubt  the  best  for  Australia, 
but  when  adapting  it,  so  far  as  may  be 
practicable,  to  the  conditions  existing  in 
the  United  States,  we  must  not  fall  into 
the  error  of  assuming  that  numerical 
strength  is  the  only  thing  necessary  in 
calculating  the  strength  of  an  army. 
Soldiers  alone  are  not  all  that  a  nation 
needs  for  defense,  no  matter  how  well 
they  may  be  trained  and  equipped,  or 
drilled  and  officered,  or  supplemented  by 
naval  strength  or  fortifications.  The 
foundations  on  which  national  defense 
must  be  built  are  social,  economic,  and 
human.  The  question  involves  every 
element  of  the  problem  of  preserving  and 
perpetuating  even-handed  justice  to  all, 
social  stability,  economic  strength  and 
independence,  a  patriotic  citizenship,  and 
a  rugged,  stalwart,  and  virile  race. 

The  population  of  Switzerland  is  less 
than  that  of  the  city  of  London,  but  if 
London  were  a  nation  by  itself,  with  its 


134         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

congested  population,  human  degenera- 
tion, artificial  life,  moral  decay,  and  eco- 
nomic dependence,  it  would  be  impossible 
of  defense  from  a  military  point  of  view. 

Just  exactly  in  the  proportion  that  the 
United  States  gathers  its  population  into 
great  cities,  does  it  court  the  same  ele- 
ments of  weakness,  but  with  this  prac- 
tical difference.  London,  being  a  part  of 
the  British  Empire,  is  safeguarded  by  the 
whole  civil  and  military  power  of  that 
nation.  Our  great  seaboard  cities,  being 
a  part  of  the  United  States,  are  practically 
defenseless,  because  our  people  have  no 
system  or  policy  of  national  defense. 
Seattle,  San  Francisco,  and  Los  Angeles, 
Boston,  New  York,  and  Philadelphia,  in 
the  event  of  an  attack  by  the  invading 
military  forces  of  any  of  the  Great  Powers, 
would  be  surrendered  just  as  Brussels 
and  Antwerp  were  surrendered,  to  save 
them  from  destruction,  if  for  no  other 
reason. 


CHAPTER  VI 

J  HE  most  serious  menace  to  the  future 
peace  of  this  country  arises  not  so  much 
from  the  possibility  of  a  sudden  invasion 
in  time  of  war  by  some  foreign  nation,  as 
from  the  danger  of  racial  conflict  resulting 
from  the  slow,  steadily  increasing  invasion 
of  an  Asiatic  people  in  time  of  peace. 
Year  after  year  they  are  coming  in  thousands 
to  make  their  homes  within  the  territory  of 
the  United  States. 

No  one  who  has  watched  the  steady 
increase  of  Japanese  population  in  Hawaii 
and  in  our  Pacific  Coast  States  can  fail 
to  realize  this  danger.  It  is  a  danger  that 
is  already  threatening  us.  It  exists  to-day, 
and  will  continue  to  exist  every  day  in  the 
future.  It  cannot  be  pushed  aside.  We 
cannot  remove  it  by  ignoring  it. 

Some  unexpected  incident  may  at  any 
time  start  excitement  and  cause  an  ex- 
plosion that  would  precipitate  a  national 
conflict.  In  such  an  event  either  Japan  or 


136         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

the  United  States  might  be  forced  into 
war  by  an  irresistible  upheaval  of  pub- 
lic sentiment.  We  had  that  experience 
in  the  case  of  the  blowing  up  of  the 
Maine. 

We  must  not  ignore  the  possibility  that 
some  such  moving  cause  for  war  might  again 
occur,  and  start  a  flame  against  which  the 
governments  and  the  Peace  Advocates  of  both 
nations  would  be  powerless. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  the  people  of  the 
United  States  generally  have  no  appre- 
ciation of  these  facts,  and  give  no  thought 
to  safeguarding  against  them.  Their  con- 
sideration should  be  approached  with  the 
most  perfect  friendliness  and  good  feeling, 
nationally  and  individually,  so  far  as  the 
Japanese  are  concerned.  Instead  of  an- 
tagonizing the  Japanese,  we  should  culti- 
vate their  good  will.  There  is  no  nation 
on  the  earth  —  no  other  race  of  people  — 
who  more  richly  deserve  and  merit  the  good 
will  of  other  nations. 

Those  of  the  Japanese  who  come  among 
us  should  be  conceded  to  have  come  with 
the  most  pacific  intentions.  They  come 
from  an  overcrowded  country  to  one  that 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      137 

is  sparsely  inhabited  —  a  country  that  is 
to  them  a  Land  of  Promise  —  a  Land 
flowing  with  milk  and  honey  —  another 
Garden  of  Eden.  All  the  majority  of  them 
want  is  so  much  of  it  as  they  can  cultivate 
with  their  own  labor.  To  their  minds  that 
means  both  comfort  and  a  competence. 
They  are  poor  and  they  long  to  be  rich. 
Do  they  differ  from  us  in  that? 

They  come  to  the  Pacific  Coast  for  the 
same  reasons  that  the  early  settlers  went 
into  the  great  West  and  endured  so  many 
hardships  to  get  homes  on  the  land.  They 
are  impelled  by  the  same  desire  to  find 
the  Golden  Fleece  that  started  the  migra- 
tion of  the  Pioneers  of  Forty-Nine.  But 
the  Japanese  are  coming  to  dig  the  gold 
out  of  gardens  and  orchards  and  vine- 
yards, instead  of  from  the  placer  mines. 

The  average  American  who  has  much 
land  on  the  Pacific  Coast  wants  a  tenant. 
The  average  Japanese  wants  only  a  hoe 
with  which  to  till  the  land.  Give  him  the 
land  and  the  hoe  and  he  will  do  the  rest. 
He  does  not  want  to  hire  somebody  to  do 
the  work  for  him  or  to  find  somebody  who 
will  pay  him  for  the  privilege  of  doing  it. 


138         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

The  Caucasian  cultivators  of  the  soil, 
where  there  are  such,  cannot  stand  against 
the  competition  of  either  the  Chinese  or 
the  Japanese.  The  danger  of  racial  con- 
troversy results  from  this  economic  com- 
petition. It  is  a  struggle  for  the  survival 
of  the  fittest.  The  Japanese  is  the  strong- 
est in  that  struggle.  The  Caucasian  must 
succumb  or  fall  back  on  his  government 
for  protection.  In  the  case  of  the  Chinese 
this  controversy  bred  bitter  strife.  In 
the  case  of  the  Japanese  it  is  liable  at  any 
moment  to  cause  serious  international 
controversy. 

That  danger  will  continue  until  we  put 
a  population  on  every  acre  of  the  rich  and 
fertile  land  on  the  Pacific  Coast.  On  every 
such  acre  there  must  be  an  occupant  who 
will  till  the  land  himself — not  a  mere  owner 
looking  for  a  tenant. 

The  Japanese  know  the  value  of  water 
as  well  as  the  value  of  land.  Every  cul- 
tivated acre  in  Japan  is  an  irrigated  acre. 
If  we  are  to  safeguard  against  the  menace 
of  conflict  with  Japan  we  must  not  only 
ourselves  populate  and  cultivate  the  land 
that  the  Japanese  covet,  but  we  must  con- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      139 

serve  and  use  the  water  as  well.  We 
must  do  with  the  country  what  the  Japan- 
ese people  would  do  with  it  if  it 
were  theirs.  So  long  as  it  remains,  from 
their  point  of  view,  unoccupied  and 
unused,  they  will  covet  it,  and  in  the 
end  they  will  possess  it,  unless  we  use 
and  possess  it  ourselves  in  advance  of 
them. 

Look  at  California! 

In  the  great  central  valley  of  that  State, 
including  the  foothill  country,  there  are 
12,500,000  acres  of  the  richest  land  in  the 
world.  The  water  with  which  to  irrigate 
every  unirrigated  acre  of  it  runs  to  waste 
year  after  year.  Every  acre  of  it  could  be 
irrigated.  Every  acre  of  it  would  support 
a  family.  It  is  so  sparsely  settled  that  to 
the  Japanese  mind  it  is  vacant  and  unoc- 
cupied. The  greater  part  of  it  is  to-day 
unreclaimed.  Some  of  it  is  producing 
grain  or  hay.  The  rest  is  pasture  —  graz- 
ing ground  for  herds  of  live  stock  where 
there  should  be  gardens  intensively  cul- 
tivated and  homes  forming  closely  settled 
communities. 

In  Japan,  on  12,500,000  acres,  the  same 


140        OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

area  as  in  California  and  no  better  land, 
they  have  evolved  a  population  of  expert 
gardeners  and  their  families  of  30,000,000 
rural  people.  There  is  not  land  enough 
in  Japan  to  give  back  a  comfortable  liv- 
ing as  the  reward  for  their  labor.  The 
great  mass  of  the  farming  people  — 
really  they  are  not  farmers  —  they  are 
gardeners  —  are  very  poor.  California 
holds  out  to  them  a  chance  for  every 
family  to  become  rich  from  their  point  of 
view.  Should  we  wonder  that  they  come 
to  California? 

The  constant  pressure  of  the  popula- 
tion in  Japan  to  overflow  will  make  a 
corresponding  inflowing  pressure  upon  Cal- 
ifornia. It  is  like  the  pressure  of  air  upon 
a  vacuum.  The  way  to  relieve  the  pressure 
is  to  fill  the  vacuum.  California  is  the 
vacuum.  Fill  it  with  people  of  the  Cau- 
casian race  who  will  till  the  soil  they 
own  with  their  own  hands,  and  the  pres- 
sure upon  this  California  vacuum  from 
Asiatic  peoples  will  cease. 

If  California's  garden  lands  were  as 
densely  populated  as  Belgium  was  before 
the  war,  there  would  be  no  Japanese 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      141 

danger-zone,  provided  the  California  cul- 
tivators of  the  soil  tilled  their  own 
acres,  or  acre,  as  the  Japanese  do 
in  their  own  country  and  want  to  do  in 
California. 

It  would  be  necessary,  in  order  to  settle 
the  Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin  Valleys 
of  California  in  that  way,  to  use  for  the 
irrigation  of  the  San  Joaquin  Valley,  all 
the  flood  water  now  wasted  in  the  Sacra- 
mento Valley.  That  can  be  done.  There 
is  no  question  about  it  whatever.  The 
first  recommendation  to  do  it  was  made  by 
a  Commission  of  eminent  engineers  ap- 
pointed by  General  Grant,  when  President, 
to  report  on  the  irrigation  of  the  San 
Joaquin  Valley. 

It  would  require  large  and  comprehen- 
sive planning,  and  the  cooperation  of  the 
State  and  the  nation.  But  had  not  the 
nation  better  spend  millions  to  populate 
the  country  the  Japanese  covet,  than  to 
spend  millions  to  fight  a  war  with  them 
to  keep  them  out  of  it.  Is  it  not  better  to 
settle  the  country,  and  in  that  way  settle 
the  controversy,  than  to  run  the  risk  of 
losing  all  the  precious  lives  and  treasure 


142         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

that  a  war  would  cost,  and  the  risk  of 
having  California  devastated  by  that  war 
in  the  same  way  that  Belgium  has  been 
destroyed? 

Ought  not  that  awful  possibility  to  be 
enough  to  awaken  the  people  of  the 
United  States  to  the  necessity  of  doing 
something,  and  doing  it  quick,  to  populate 
the  Pacific  Coast  ? 

If  anyone  doubts  that  the  Japanese 
are  gaining  a  firm  foothold  in  our  terri- 
tory, and  a  foothold  that  is  steadily  grow- 
ing stronger  year  by  year,  they  will  be 
convinced  by  the  mere  statement  of  the 
facts  as  to  the  Japanese  influx  into  the 
United  States. 

The  facts  relating  to  that  influx  and 
the  menace  it  holds  for  this  country  in 
the  event  of  a  war  with  Japan,  are  dis- 
passionately set  forth  in  "The  Valor  of 
Ignorance,"  by  Homer  Lea,  published  in 
1909.  The  author  was  a  Californian,  but 
had  lived  many  years  in  the  Orient.  He 
had  studied  it  deeply  and  thoroughly  un- 
derstood his  subject. 

In  his  book  he  calls  attention  to  the  fact 
that  the  Japanese  population  in  Hawaii 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      143 

increased  from  116  in  1884  to  22,329  in 
1896;  and  from  22,329  in  1896  to  61,115 
in  1909. 

Then  he  gives  us  these  facts: 

"Japanese  immigration  into  the  Hawaiian 
Islands,  from  1900  to  1908,  has  been  65,708. 
The  departures  during  this  period  were  42,313. 
The  military  unfit  have  in  this  manner  been 
supplanted  by  the  veterans  of  a  great  war,  and 
the  military  occupation  of  Hawaii  tentatively 
accomplished. 

"In  these  islands  at  the  present  time  the 
number  of  Japanese  who  have  completed 
their  active  term  of  service  in  the  Imperial 
armies,  a  part  of  whom  are  veterans  of  the 
Russian  War,  exceeds  the  entire  field  army  of 
the  United  States." 

Of  more  startling  importance  are  the 
facts  with  reference  to  Japanese  immigra- 
tion to  the  mainland  territory  of  the 
United  States,  which  are  given  in  the 
same  volume  as  follows: 

Immigration  by  political  periods: 

1891-1900 24,806 

1901-1905 64,102 

1905-1906 14,243 

1906-1907 30,226 

Total  133,377 


144         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

During  the  last  six  years  there  have  come  to  the 
United  States  (Report  of  Bureau  of  Immigration) 
90,123  Japanese  male  adults. 

In  California  the  Japanese  constitute  more  than  one- 
seventh  of  the  male  adults  of  military  age : 

Caucasian  males  of  military  age      .    .    .    262,694 
Japanese  males  of  military  age    ....      45,725 

In  Washington  the  Japanese  constitute  nearly  one- 
ninth  of  the  male  population  of  military  age : 

Caucasian  males  of  military  age    .    .    .      163,682 
Japanese  males  of  military  age 17,000 

The  foregoing  rapidly  increasing  tide  of 
Asiatic  immigration  forced  attention  to 
the  subject,  and  in  1908  the  Japanese 
government  agreed  voluntarily  with  the 
United  States  that  in  future  passports 
should  not  be  issued  by  the  Japanese 
government  to  laborers  desiring  to  emi- 
grate from  Japan  to  the  United  States. 
This  temporarily  checked  this  class  of  im- 
migration and  in  the  year  ending  June 
30,  1908,  the  total  immigration  fell  to 
16,418;  the  year  ending  June  30,  1909,  to 
3,275;  the  year  ending  June  30,  1910,  to 
2,798. 

But  note  the  steady  increase  since  then ! 
Year  ending  June  30,  1911,  4,575;  year 
ending  June  30,  1912,  6,172;  year  end- 
ing June  30,  1913,  8,302;  year  ending 
June  30,  1914,  8,941, 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      145 

These  figures,  however,  give  no  ade- 
quate conception  of  the  actual  facts,  as 
they  have  developed  in  California  during 
the  last  ten  years  in  such  a  way  as  to 
stimulate  racial  controversy.  Some  of  the 
most  beautiful  and  productive  sections 
of  the  fruit-growing  regions  of  California 
have  been  entirely  absorbed  by  Japanese. 
Caucasian  communities  have  become  Jap- 
anese communities.  Such  a  transforma- 
tion is  certainly  not  one  that  is  calculated 
to  allay  racial  controversy. 

The  alien  land  law  of  California  will 
not  allay  racial  controversy  —  it  will  in- 
tensify it.  Japan  has  protested  against  it, 
as  she  protested  against  our  acquisition  of 
Hawaii,  and  there  has  been  no  with- 
drawal of  her  protests. 

The  Japanese  government  has  shown 
a  disposition  to  mitigate  the  danger  of 
controversy  by  limiting  the  emigration  of 
Japanese  to  this  country,  but  that  govern- 
ment can  not  control  her  people  after  they 
come  to  this  country.  If  they  cannot 
buy  land  they  will  lease  it.  That  leads  to 
all  the  trouble  indicated  in  the  following 
newspaper  item: 


146         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

"Tacoma,  Wash.,  Jan.  5  (1915).— The 
Tacoma  delegation  to  the  legislature,  which 
will  meet  on  January  11,  has  been  notified 
that  a  bill  will  be  introduced  for  a  State  ref- 
erendum on  a  law  to  prevent  leasing  of  Wash- 
ington land  to  Asiatics.  Many  members  of 
the  legislature  are  pledged  to  support  the 
measure. 

"Japanese  gardeners,  it  is  contended,  are 
increasing  in  numbers,  getting  the  best  land 
about  the  cities  under  lease,  and  some  of  them 
lease  land  for  99  years  or  have  a  trustee  buy 
it  for  them.  Many  Japanese  marry  'picture 
brides'  and  later  have  their  leases  of  titles 
transferred  to  their  infant  sons  and  daughters 
born  here. 

"An  amendment  submitted  in  November 
permitting  aliens  to  own  land  in  cities  was 
overwhelmingly  defeated. ' ' 

There  is  very  little  doubt  that  the 
majority  of  the  Japanese  on  the  Pacific 
Coast  are  soldiers,  veterans  of  the  Japan- 
ese wars,  and  that  in  case  of  war  Japan 
could  mobilize  on  our  territory  between 
the  Pacific  Ocean  and  the  inaccessible 
mountains  constituting  the  Cascade  and 
Sierra  Nevada  Ranges,  more  Japanese 
soldiers  who  are  right  now  in  that  territory 
than  we  have  United  States  troops  in  the 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      147 

whole  mainland  territory  of  the  United 
States,  or  will  have  when  our  army  is 
enlisted  up  to  its  full  strength  of  100,000 
men. 

The  figures  given  in  "The  Valor  of 
Ignorance"  show  that  in  1907  there  were 
62,725  Japanese  of  military  age  in  the 
States  of  Washington  and  California. 
Since  then,  up  to  June  30, 1914,  the  Japan- 
ese immigration  has  been  50,481,  and 
nearly  all  of  those  who  come  are  men  of 
military  age.  So  that  now  we  have  no 
doubt  more  trained  Japanese  soldiers  in 
California,  Oregon  and  Washington,  than 
our  entire  standing  army  if  it  were  en- 
listed to  its  full  quota  of  100,000  men, 
including  every  soldier  we  have,  wherever 
he  may  be  stationed. 

And  at  the  rate  they  are  now  coming, 
in  ten  years  we  will  have  more  than  our 
entire  standing  army  would  then  be  if  we 
increased  it  to  200,000,  as  the  Militarists 
urge  should  be  done. 

What  are  we  going  to  do  about  it? 

That  is  the  question  that  stares  every 
citizen  of  the  United  States  straight  in 
the  face. 


148         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

It  may  be  that  all  cannot  be  brought 
to  agree  as  to  what  ought  to  be  done, 
but  certainly  all  must  agree  that  some- 
thing should  be  done,  and  it  is  equally  cer- 
tain that  neither  an  Exclusion  Law,  nor  an 
Alien  Land  Law,  nor  an  Alien  Leasing 
Law,  will  settle  the  question,  or  relieve  the 
strain  of  racial  competition  that  is  certain, 
unless  obviated,  to  eventually  breed  an 
armed  conflict  with  Japan. 

The  same  author  who  has  been  previ- 
ously quoted,  referring  to  the  Philippine* 
Islands,  says: 

"The  conquest  of  these  islands  by  Japan 
will  be  less  of  a  military  undertaking  than 
was  the  seizure  of  Cuba  by  the  United  States; 
for  while  Santiago  de  Cuba  did  not  fall  until 
nearly  three  months  after  the  declaration  of 
war,  Manila  will  be  forced  to  surrender  in 
less  than  three  weeks.  Otherwise  the  occu- 
pation of  Cuba  portrays  with  reasonable  ex- 
actitude the  manner  in  which  the  Philippines 
will  be  taken  over  by  Japan." 

Since  this  was  written  the  events  of  the 
present  war  have  still  further  strengthened 
the  Japanese  power  in  the  Pacific.  First 
China,  then  Russia,  and  now  Germany 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      149 

have  been  eliminated.  To  complacently 
assume  that  Japan  will  never  have  occa- 
sion to  cross  swords  with  the  United 
States,  is  surely  a  most  mistaken  attitude 
for  the  people  of  this  country  to  delude 
themselves  with.  It  is  contrary  to  every 
dictate  of  common  sense  and  reason,  when 
the  people  of  the  Pacific  Coast  are  forced 
for  their  own  protection  to  enact  legisla- 
tion which  Japan  interprets  as  a  violation 
of  her  treaty  rights.  The  average  run 
of  people  in  other  States  give  no  thought 
to  the  matter.  They  say,  "Yes,  California 
has  her  problem  with  the  Japs."  It  is 
not  California's  problem.  It  is  the  prob- 
lem of  the  United  States. 

And  in  calling  attention  to  the  practical 
impossibility  of  defending  the  Pacific  Coast 
against  Japanese  invasion  and  occupa- 
tion in  the  event  of  war,  the  author  here- 
tofore quoted  from  calls  attention  to  the 
following  facts,  among  others,  showing 
our  unpreparedness  and  the  complete 
inadequacy  of  our  defenses: 

"The  short  period  of  time  within  which 
Japan  is  able  to  transport  her  armies  to  this 
continent  —  200,000  men  in  four  weeks,  a 


150         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

half  million  in  four  months,  and  more  than  a 
million  in  ten  months  —  necessitates  in  this 
Republic  a  corresponding  degree  of  prepared- 
ness and  rapidity  of  mobilization. 

"Within  one  month  after  the  declaration 
of  war  this  Republic  must  place,  in  each  of  the 
three  defensive  spheres  of  the  Pacific  Coast, 
armies  that  are  capable  of  giving  battle  to  the 
maximum  number  of  troops  that  Japan  can 
transport  in  a  single  voyage.  This  is  known 
to  be  in  excess  of  200,000  men.  .  .  .  We  have 
called  attention  to  the  brevity  of  modern 
wars  in  general  and  naval  movements  in  par- 
ticular; how  within  a  few  weeks  after  war  is 
declared,  concurrent  with  the  seizure  of  the 
Philippines,  Hawaii,  and  Alaska,  will  the 
conquest  of  Washington  and  Oregon  be  con- 
summated. In  the  same  manner  within  three 
months  after  hostilities  have  been  begun 
there,  armies  will  land  upon  the  seaboard  of 
Southern  California.  .  .  .  No  force  can  be 
placed  on  the  seaboard  of  Southern  Cali- 
fornia either  within  three  months  or  nine 
months  that  would  delay  the  advance  of  the 
Japanese  armies  a  single  day. 

"The  maximum  force  that  can  be  mobi- 
lized in  the  Republic  immediately  following  a 
declaration  of  war  is  less  than  100,000  men, 
of  whom  two-thirds  are  militia.  This  force, 
made  up  of  more  than  forty  miniature  armies, 
is  scattered,  each  under  separate  military 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      151 

and  civil  jurisdiction,  over  the  entire  nation. 
By  the  time  these  heterogeneous  elements  are 
gathered  together,  organized  into  proper 
military  units,  and  made  ready  for  transporta- 
tion to  the  front,  the  States  of  Washington 
and  Oregon  will  have  been  invaded  and  their 
conquest  made  complete  by  a  vastly  superior 
force.  ...  So  long  as  the  existent  military 
system  continues  in  the  Republic  there  can 
be  no  adequate  defense  of  any  single  portion 
of  the  Pacific  Coast  within  a  year  after  a  dec- 
laration of  war,  nor  the  three  spheres  within 
as  many  years." 

Apparently  neither  the  Militarists,  nor 
the  Passivists,  nor  the  Pacificists,  nor  the 
Pacificators,  ever  give  any  thought  or 
heed  to  the  fact  of  danger  from  within  as 
the  result  of  a  steadily  growing  alien  popu- 
lation, permanently  settled  in  the  United 
States,  and  which  would  in  the  event  of 
war  constitute  a  force  larger  than  any 
army  we  would  have  available  for  defense. 

The  chief  danger  of  an  armed  conflict 
with  Japan  arises  from  the  existence  in 
our  midst  of  this  alien  population,  and 
the  danger  that  the  pressure  of  their  com- 
petition may  breed  strife  similar  to  that 
which  preceded  the  Chinese  Exclusion 


152         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

Act,  a  situation  which  can  never  be  ap- 
plied to  Japan  without  creating  a  cer- 
tainty of  war  immediately  or  in  the 
future. 

In  this  respect  we  are  like  a  people  living 
on  the  slopes  below  the  crater  of  a  vol- 
cano. We  can  never  know  when  an 
eruption  may  take  place  or  what  its  ex- 
tent or  consequences  may  be.  All  we  do 
know  is  that  the  danger  exists;  and  it  is 
folly  beyond  the  possibility  of  expression 
or  description  to  ignore  that  fact,  and 
perpetuate  our  national  indifference  and 
unpreparedness.  It  is  this  situation  on  the 
Pacific  Coast,  more  than  any  other  one 
thing,  which  makes  the  advocacy  of  dis- 
armament for  this  nation  so  inconceiv- 
ably dangerous  unless  Japan  and  China 
should  also  disarm,  which  we  may  rest 
assured  they  will  never  do.  China  is 
just  entering  upon  a  new  era  of  mili- 
tarism under  a  Military  Dictator  whose 
policy  will  be  for  arms  and  armament. 

If  the  disarmament  of  the  United  States 
were  to  be  agreed  to  and  carried  out 
because  other  nations  agreed  to  disarm, 
and  Japan  and  China  were  willing  to  dis- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE       153 

arm,  then  the  disarmament  of  Asiatic 
nations  would  have  to  be  coupled  with  the 
further  safeguard  of  an  agreement  stop- 
ping emigration  from  Asia  to  America  — 
not  only  to  North  America,  but  to  South 
America  as  well.  It  is  not  proposed  by 
any  of  the  advocates  of  disarmament  to 
stop  such  immigration,  nor  will  it  be 
stopped.  The  fact  that  it  will  continue 
indefinitely  through  the  years  of  the  future 
is  a  fact  which  must  be  recognized  as  fun- 
damental in  dealing  with  the  question  of 
national  defense  for  the  United  States  of 
America. 

The  economic  conditions  created  by 
the  Asiatic  in  America  are  more  danger- 
ous and  difficult  of  adjustment  than  any 
problem  resulting  from  the  military  or 
naval  strength  of  any  Asiatic  nation  so 
long  as  their  people  in  times  of  peace  will 
stay  in  Asia.  But  they  will  not  stay  in 
Asia  of  their  own  accord,  and  they  will 
not  be  forced  to  do  so.  We  must  face  not 
only  the  problems  that  will  arise  from  a 
large  Asiatic  population  on  the  Pacific 
Coast  of  the  United  States,  but  in  South 
America,  Central  America,  and  Mexico. 


154         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

In  a  few  generations  the  Japanese  will 
control  the  northern  Pacific  shores  of 
South  America.  Peru  will  come  to  be  in 
reality  a  Japanese  country.  The  Japanese 
will  control  because  they  will  be  in  a  major- 
ity, just  as  they  now  constitute  a  majority 
of  the  population  of  Hawaii.  They  will 
dominate  the  Indian  population  and  will 
absorb  or  supplant  the  Spanish  just  as 
we  have  done  in  California.  In  the  course 
of  time  the  Japanese  will  control  Mexico 
in  the  same  way,  unless  we  control  it 
ourselves. 

It  does  not  follow  that  we  could  not 
live  at  peace  with  the  Japanese,  if  they  con- 
trolled South  America  and  Mexico,  as  we 
now  live  at  peace  with  them  when  they  only 
control  Japan,  Formosa,  Sakhalin,  Korea, 
and  their  sphere  of  influence  in  Manchuria, 
as  well  as  Tsing  Tao  and  their  adjoining 
territory  in  China  and  Pacific  Islands. 

But  if  we  are  to  do  so,  it  can  only  be 
done  by  meeting  their  economic  competi- 
tion and  establishing  within  our  own  terri- 
tory a  system  of  physical  and  mental 
development,  a  social  and  economic  sys- 
tem, and  a  system  of  military  defense, 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      155 

that  will  not  only  be  equal  but  superior  to 
theirs. 

The  conflict  between  the  races  of  Asia 
and  the  races  of  America  is  the  age-old 
competition  to  test  which  is  the  stronger 
race.  The  fittest  will  survive.  We  can- 
not defend  ourselves  by  temporary  exclu- 
sion, as  we  have  tried  to  do  with  the 
Chinese.  It  is  only  a  question  of  time 
when  China  will  emerge  from  the  slumber 
of  the  centuries  and  provide  herself  with 
all  the  implements  of  modern  warfare  nec- 
essary to  insist  upon  the  same  treatment 
for  her  people  that  we  accord  to  other 
nations. 

It  may  be  a  long  time  before  an  armed 
conflict  between  the  United  States  and 
Japan  is  precipitated,  but  it  is  inevitable, 
unless  the  national  policy  advocated  in 
this  book  is  adopted.  War  between  this 
country  and  Japan  within  the  next  forty 
years,  unless  the  present  trend  is  checked, 
is  as  inevitable  as  it  has  been  at  all  times 
during  the  last  forty  years  between  France 
and  Germany,  with  this  difference: 

The  present  European  war  is  the  result 
of  primary  causes  that  were  so  deeply 


156         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

rooted  in  wrong  and  injustice,  that  no 
human  power  could  eradicate  them.  It  is 
different  with  Japan.  We  have  no  long 
standing  or  deeply  rooted  controversy  with 
Japan  and  we  need  never  have  if  we  meet 
the  economic  problem  involved  in  this 
great  racial  competition  between  Asia  and 
America.  It  is  coming  upon  us,  however, 
with  the  slow  moving  certainty  of  a 
glacier,  and  meet  it  we  must.  We  must 
prevail  or  be  overwhelmed,  and  unless  we 
can  face  the  economic  conflicts  involved 
and  triumph  in  them,  it  is  useless  for  us  to 
undertake  to  hold  our  ground  by  mili- 
tarism alone. 

The  fact  undoubtedly  is  that  of  all  three 
of  the  plans  now  before  the  people  of  the 
United  States  for  national  defense  or  for 
preserving  peace,  the  most  dangerous  and 
deceptive  is  that  of  the  militarists,  for 
a  bigger  standing  army.  Such  an  army 
would  create  a  false  and  misleading  feel- 
ing of  security  from  danger  which  would 
becloud  the  real  problems  involved  and 
make  their  solution  more  difficult,  if  not 
impossible. 

Japan   to-day  has    the    most    efficient 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      157 

military  system  of  any  nation  of  the  world. 
This  statement  refers  to  the  system. 
Other  nations  may  have  larger  armies, 
but  Japan's  military  system,  like  that  of 
Switzerland,  is  fitted  into  and  matches 
with  her  whole  social,  commercial,  and 
economic  system.  It  is  a  part  of  the 
very  fiber  of  her  national  being,  and 
not  an  excrescence,  as  is  our  standing 
army. 

And  behind  this  she  has  the  most  adapt- 
able, industrious,  and  physically  and  men- 
tally efficient  and  vigorous  people  of  the 
world.  The  danger  of  war  between  the 
United  States  and  Japan  is  not  so  much 
a  present  as  a  future  danger.  Whether  it 
is  in  the  near  future  or  the  far  future 
depends  largely  on  accident. 

The  danger  could  be  removed  entirely 
if  the  American  people  would  substitute 
intelligent  study  of  the  problem  for  bump- 
tious conceit,  and  concerted  action  on 
right  lines  for  aimless  talk.  Unless  we 
do  that  our  ultimate  fate  is  as  inevitable 
as  that  of  Rome  when  she  vainly  strove 
by  militarism  alone  to  protect  a  decadent 
nation  against  the  onslaughts  of  virile 


158         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

races.  Our  fate  will  not  be  so  long  de- 
layed because  we  are  now  crowding  into 
a  decade  the  events  that  once  evolved 
slowly  through  a  century.  We  may  reach 
in  forty  years  a  condition  of  relative  weak- 
ness as  against  opposing  forces  which 
Rome  reached  only  after  four  hundred 
years. 

There  will  never  be  a  war  between 
Japan  and  the  United  States  if  the  people 
of  this  country  will  do  unto  the  Japanese 
in  all  things  as  we  would  desire  the  Japa- 
nese to  do  unto  us,  if  our  situations  were 
reversed,  and  they  occupied  this  country 
and  we  theirs,  provided  always,  that  we 
at  the  same  time  recognize  that  the 
Japanese  are  the  stronger  rather  than  the 
weaker  race,  and  cannot  be  exploited  or 
their  labor  permanently  appropriated  for 
our  profit  rather  than  theirs;  and  pro- 
vided  further,  that  we  recognize  that  Japan 
is  enormously  overpopulated ;  that  her 
population,  which  has  grown  from  only 
four  or  five  million  in  the  tenth  century  to 
over  fifty  million  in  the  twentieth,  is  in- 
creasing at  the  rate  of  about  1,000,000  a 
year,  and  that  the  hive  must  swarm. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      159 

This  necessity  sets  forces  in  motion 
that  are  as  irresistible  in  their  workings 
as  the  laws  that  control  the  universe  and 
direct  the  stars  in  their  courses.  When- 
ever race  meets  race  in  such  a  fundamental 
struggle  for  existence,  the  law  of  the  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest  is  inexorable.  As 
Japan  increases  her  population,  she  be- 
comes stronger,  because  wherever  her 
people  go  they  root  themselves  to  the 
soil.  As  we  increase  our  population,  we 
become  weaker,  because  we  steadily  en- 
large the  proportion  of  our  population 
that  we  crowd  into  congested  cities  where 
it  rots. 

The  poison  of  an  Industrial  System 
resting  upon  a  system  of  life  that  destroys 
Humanity  is  filtering  into  the  Japanese 
body  politic,  but  before  it  seriously  de- 
generates their  racial  strength  the  Japa- 
nese will  see  its  evil  effects  on  the  State, 
and  remove  the  cause. 

We  see  its  evil  effects  on  the  State,  but 
seem  unable  to  shake  off  the  grip  of  Com- 
mercialism which  is  responsible  for  it. 
We  will  never  shake  off  that  grip  until  we 
can  rise  to  the  higher  level  of  patriotism 


160         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

which  will  subordinate  Commerce  and 
Industry  to  the  welfare  of  Humanity. 

Unless  we  are  willing  to  accept,  as  the 
inevitable  end  of  our  civilization,  the  fate 
of  all  the  Ancient  Civilizations,  we  must 
remember  that  no  nation  can  endure  in 
which  one  class  is  exploited  for  the  benefit 
of  another.  The  same  rule  applies  in- 
exorably to  any  attempt  by  the  people 
of  one  country  to  exploit  the  people  of 
another  and  live  on  their  labor. 

If  an  armed  conflict  should  be  precipi- 
tated in  the  near  future  between  this 
country  and  Japan  it  will  grow  out  of 
racial  controversies  resulting  from  an 
effort  to  exploit  the  Japanese  in  the  United 
States  in  the  same  way  that  we  are  ex- 
ploiting the  immigrants  from  European 
countries.  The  difficulty  that  now  faces 
the  people  of  the  United  States  with 
reference  to  the  Japanese  problem  arises 
from  the  fact  that  we  can  neither  exploit, 
nor  exclude,  nor  assimilate  the  Japanese, 
nor  can  we,  under  present  conditions, 
survive  their  economic  competition  within 
our  own  territory. 

Let  the  question  of  exploitation  be  first 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      161 

considered.  There  is  a  strong  contingent 
of  Americans  on  the  Pacific  Coast  who 
openly  advocate  Japanese  immigration. 
They  argue  that  our  proud  and  superior 
race  will  not  condescend  to  do  the  "squat 
labor"  as  they  term  it,  that  is  necessary 
to  get  the  gold  from  the  gardens  of  Cali- 
fornia —  and  from  her  vast  plantations  of 
potatoes,  vegetables,  and  other  food  prod- 
ucts that  are  grown  on  the  marvelously 
fertile  soil  of  that  State.  So  they  want 
the  Japanese  to  come  and  do  the  "squat 
labor"  while  the  Aristocratic  Anglo-Saxon 
reaps  the  lion's  share  of  the  profits  as  the 
owner  of  the  land. 

They  tried  that  once  with  the  Chinese, 
with  what  result? 

That  the  docile  and  subservient  Chi- 
nese were  the  best  field  laborers  that  were 
ever  found  by  any  body  of  plantation- 
owners,  and  for  a  time  the  Caucasian 
owners  of  the  orchards  and  vineyards  and 
lordly  demesnes  of  California  prospered 
mightily  from  the  profits  earned  for  them 
by  the  labor  of  the  lowly  Chinese. 

But  what  happened? 

The  Chinese  were  not  only  faithful  and 


162         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

industrious,  they  were  frugal  as  well. 
They  saved  their  money.  Soon  they  were 
not  only  laborers,  but  also  capitalists,  in 
a  small  way.  Then  they  began  to  buy 
land  and  work  in  their  own  fields,  gardens, 
and  orchards.  The  industries  that  pro- 
duced food  from  land  as  the  result  of 
intensive  cultivation  with  human  labor 
were  fast  passing  into  the  hands  of  the 
Chinese.  They  were  rapidly  buying  the 
lands  which  were  the  basis  of  those  in- 
dustries. They  were  ceasing  to  work  for 
the  benefit  of  another  race.  They  worked 
for  themselves  and  their  own  benefit. 

And  that  was  not  all.  One  after  an- 
other every  manufacturing  industry  in 
California  in  which  human  labor  was  a 
large  element  of  production  was  being 
absorbed  by  the  Chinese.  First  they 
worked  for  American  Manufacturers. 
Then  they  became  their  own  employers 
and  the  American  Manufacturer  was 
forced  out  of  business  by  the  economic 
competition  of  a  stronger  race.  In  the 
end,  it  came  to  be  seen  of  all  men  that  the 
Caucasian  Manufacturer,  the  Caucasian 
Wageworker,  and  the  Caucasian  Land- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      163 

owner,  and  food  producer,  were  gradually 
surrendering  to  and  being  eliminated  by 
the  economic  competition  of  the  Chinese. 

So  we  excluded  the  Chinese. 

If  we  had  not  done  so,  in  less  than  a 
generation  the  Pacific  Coast  would  have 
been  a  Chinese  Country,  and  no  oppres- 
sion or  mistreatment  to  which  they  could 
have  been  subjected  would  have  prevented 
it,  if  they  had  been  allowed  to  continue 
the  process  of  commercial  and  agricultural 
absorption  that  had  progressed  so  far 
before  we  finally  excluded  them. 

Now  the  Japanese  are  repeating  the 
same  process  of  absorption.  We  cannot 
exclude  them,  and  if  we  undertook  to  do 
so,  it  would  only  be  postponing  the  evil 
day,  when  such  a  policy  would  breed  an 
armed  conflict.  The  Japanese  regard  the 
law  that  prohibits  their  acquisition  of 
land  as  a  violation  of  our  treaty  with  them. 
They  look  to  our  own  Courts  to  finally 
decide  it  to  be  unconstitutional.  It  may 
be  a  long  time  coming,  but  the  final  re- 
sult of  the  law  preventing  them  from  ac- 
quiring land  in  California  will  be  war  with 
Japan  unless  other  measures  are  adopted 


164         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

to  supplement  one  that  will  ultimately  prove 
so  futile. 

The  exclusion  of  the  Japanese  from  the 
right  to  acquire  land,  but  still  permitting 
them  to  lease  land,  makes  the  situation 
more  dangerous  than  it  was  before.  It 
adds  to  all  the  dangers  of  the  purely 
economic  struggle  which  resulted  from 
Chinese  Competition,  the  additional  dan- 
ger of  all  the  bad  blood  that  a  tenantry 
system  inevitably  develops.  Every  lease- 
hold will  develop  into  a  breeding  place 
for  friction  and  conflict  between  individual 
landlords  and  tenants,  as  well  as  con- 
flicts between  them  as  opposing  classes, 
and  will  result  finally  in  the  same  racial 
controversies  that  led  up  to  the  passage  of 
the  Chinese  Exclusion  Act. 

Already  the  Japanese  tenantry  in  the 
Delta  of  the  San  Joaquin  River  have 
formed  a  protective  association  to  enable 
them  to  oppose  the  organized  power  of  the 
mass  against  any  objectionable  conditions 
imposed  by  their  landlords,  as  well  as  to 
fix  the  rental  they  are  willing  to  pay. 
Does  anyone  doubt  that  such  a  tenantry 
system  will  in  time  breed  as  much  con- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      165 

troversy  as  the  Nonresident  Landlord 
System  has  caused  in  Ireland  ? 

The  Japanese  Tenantry  System  in  Cali- 
fornia must  in  the  very  nature  of  things 
be  a  Nonresident  Landlord  System.  It 
can  be  nothing  else.  The  community  will 
be  Japanese.  The  landlord  will  seek  a 
home  elsewhere,  in  a  Caucasian  com- 
munity. His  only  thought  will  be  to 
get  all  he  can  from  those  whose  labor  pro- 
duces his  income.  Their  only  thought 
will  be  to  make  that  amount  as  small  as 
possible.  We  have  created  another  "Ir- 
repressible Conflict."  Whether  we  will 
adjust  it  without  a  resort  to  arms  is  a 
very  grave  question. 

One  of  the  most  dangerous  elements 
in  this  complicated  problem  is  the  self- 
complacent  ignorance  and  refusal  to  face 
facts  which  characterizes  the  attitude  of 
the  people  not  only  of  the  western  half, 
but  more  particularly  those  of  the  eastern 
half  of  the  United  States.  Not  long  ago  a 
paroxysm  of  protest  resulted  from  a  rumor 
that  a  few  hundred  Japanese  were  about  to 
settle  in  Michigan.  But  not  the  slightest 
heed  is  paid  to  the  fact  that  a  sister  State 


166         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

has  this  problem  already  within  her  body 
politic  eating  like  a  cancer  at  her  very 
vitals;  that  she  is  powerless  to  effectively 
settle  the  question  by  herself  alone;  and 
that  no  national  disposition  exists  to  settle 
it  in  the  only  way  it  can  possibly  be  set- 
tled. The  way  to  settle  it  is  not  by  build- 
ing more  fortifications,  or  enlarging  our 
standing  army,  or  in  any  way  increasing 
our  naval  or  military  burdens,  or  doing 
anything  that  will  now  or  hereafter  tend  to 
put  the  neck  of  the  American  people  under 
the  heel  of  militarism.  There  can  be  no 
settlement  of  this  question  other  than 
the  one  urged  in  this  book.  The  question 
is  economic,  and  the  settlement  must 
be  economic. 

Japan  wants  no  war  with  us  now.  Of 
that  we  may  rest  assured.  But  any  such 
treatment  of  the  Japanese  as  we  extended 
to  the  Chinese  would  bring  war  instantly. 
Whether  the  racial  animosity  that  Japa- 
nese competition  within  our  own  territory 
will  inevitably  create  can  be  controlled, 
and  conflict  caused  by  it  averted,  may  well 
be  doubted,  unless  the  people  of  the  entire 
United  States  will  recognize  the  problem 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      167 

as  vital  and  national,  and  forthwith  apply 
the  only  possible  practicable  solution. 

We  must  recognize  both  the  necessity  for 
and  the  right  of  Japanese  expansion  into 
new  territories.  That  expansion  means 
the  upbuilding  of  enormous  populations 
of  Japanese  in  those  countries.  If  ten 
millions  of  the  most  vigorous  of  Japan's 
teeming  population  could  be  transplanted 
from  their  native  country  to  garden  homes 
in  other  countries  bordering  the  Pacific, 
where  their  allegiance  to  Japan  would  be 
unaffected,  and  colonies  developed  that 
would  bear  the  same  relation  to  the  mother 
country  that  Canada  bears  to  Great 
Britain,  it  would  vastly  benefit  those  who 
remained  in  Japan  as  well  as  those  who 
emigrated.  There  must  be  such  an  emi- 
gration. It  cannot  be  prevented.  The 
United  States  should  not  oppose  it. 

But  where  shall  they  go? 

To  the  Philippines? 

There  you  project  a  controversy  even 
by  discussion.  Of  course  Japan  will  not 
colonize  the  Philippines  while  we  control 
them.  Aside  from  that,  the  climate  is 
undesirable.  The  Japanese  want  to  colo- 


168         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

nize  where  they  can  reproduce  their  racial 
strength.  The  climate  of  the  Philippines 
would  destroy  it.  Generations  will  elapse 
before  the  Japanese  will  covet  the  Philip- 
pines in  order  to  colonize  them,  though 
she  might  want  them  for  other  reasons. 

Shall  they  go  to  Manchuria? 

Yes,  to  some  extent,  but  the  great  body 
of  the  overflowing  population  of  Japan 
will  not  go  to  Manchuria. 

It  is  a  bleak,  cold,  dreary,  and  inhos- 
pitable country,  already  to  a  large  extent 
cultivated  and  populated. 

The  Japanese  will  not  go  to  Manchuria 
for  another  reason. 

They  are  an  Island  people  and  the  smell 
of  the  sea  is  in  their  nostrils.  They 
already  control  the  commerce  of  the 
Pacific  and  their  ambition  is  to  in- 
crease that  commerce  by  every  means  in 
their  power. 

The  colonies  they  will  found  in  the  fu- 
ture, the  countries  that  the  swarming 
millions  from  Japan  will  covet  and  occupy 
will  border  the  Pacific  Ocean,  where  the 
ships  that  fly  the  Japanese  flag  will  come 
and  go  as  the  couriers  of  a  great  com- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      169 

merce  binding  the  colonies  of  Japan  to  the 
mother  country. 

Where  then  will  they  go? 

To  South  America? 

Yes,  to  its  northern  shores  bordering 
the  Pacific,  to  Colombia,  Ecuador,  and 
Peru,  more  particularly  to  Peru.  In  a 
very  few  years,  as  history  runs,  there  will 
be  an  immense  Japanese  population  on 
these  Northern  Pacific  shores  of  South 
America.  It  is  not  at  all  unlikely  that  in 
less  than  a  century  there  will  be  a  larger 
population  in  South  America  of  the  Jap- 
anese race  than  now  exists  in  all  of  Japan. 
It  will  be  recruited  not  only  from  the 
surplus  population  of  the  mother  country, 
but  from  a  rapid  reproduction  of  the 
Japanese  among  the  transplanted  popula- 
tion. There  will  be  no  race  suicide  among 
the  Japanese.  They  will  stick  to  the  land 
in  these  new  countries  and  breed  a  race 
as  sturdy  as  its  progenitors.  They  will 
never  adopt  the  Anglo-Saxon  system  of 
City  Congestion  and  consequent  Racial 
Extinction. 

Will  they  go  to  Mexico? 

Yes,  they  will  go  to  Mexico,  and  the 


170         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

Pacific  Coast  region  of  Mexico  will  be 
another  breeding  ground  for  this  hardy 
and  virile  race,  where  likewise  they  will 
be  tillers  of  the  soil  and  a  people  hardened 
and  strengthened  by  constant  contact 
with  Mother  Earth. 

More  than  that,  the  Mexicans  will 
speedily  be  taught,  if  they  require  the 
lesson,  that  if  they  harm  a  hair  in  the  head 
of  a  Japanese,  punishment  and  retribu- 
tion will  be  sure,  swift,  and  severe.  They 
will  live  at  peace  with  the  Japanese  for 
that  reason.  It  is  the  only  way  to  have 
peace  in  Mexico,  and  Japan  is  strong 
enough  to  enforce  peace  and  the  security 
of  the  lives  and  property  of  all  her  people 
that  way. 

And  because  they  will  do  that,  they  will 
eventually  control  and  dominate  Mexico, 
in  a  good  deal  the  same  way  that  England 
dominates  Egypt.  Whenever  they  do  that, 
they  will  protect  not  only  their  own 
people  and  their  property,  but  that  of  all 
other  peoples  as  well,  and  everybody  will 
be  as  safe  in  Mexico  as  in  Japan.  But 
the  waters  that  now  run  to  waste  in 
the  Pacific  Ocean,  on  the  west  coast  of 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      171 

Mexico,  will  be  harnessed  to  irrigate  the 
orchards  and  gardens  of  the  Japanese, 
and  an  Asiatic  and  not  a  Caucasian  race 
will  possess  Mexico. 

"Why?"  some  one  asks. 

For  the  very  simple  reason  that  the 
Japanese  will  occupy  Mexico  because 
they  want  to  reclaim  and  cultivate  its 
waste  lands,  and  not  speculate  in  them 
or  exploit  somebody  else  who  will  cul- 
tivate them. 

Already  the  Japanese  are  as  laborers 
cultivating  large  areas  owned  by  American 
Capitalists  in  the  delta  of  the  Colorado 
River.  That  will  not  last.  The  Japanese 
will  before  very  long  organize  associations 
among  themselves  and  acquire  and  own 
the  land  or  some  other  land  which  they 
can  own  and  cultivate  for  themselves. 
There  is  no  alien  land  law  in  Mexico  that 
will  prevent  that  and  there  will  be  none. 
The  Japanese  will  see  to  that.  Neither 
will  there  ever  be  any  long  continued 
peace  or  security  for  life  or  property  in 
Mexico  until  either  Japan  or  the  United 
States  enforces  it.  If  we  do  not,  they 
will.  That  is  as  certain  as  fate. 


172         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

And  when  they  undertake  the  task, 
dragged  into  it  by  some  outrage  on  their 
own  people,  shall  we  stay  their  hand,  and 
say  to  them  that  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
applies  to  Asiatic  as  well  as  to  European 
nations? 

It  is  only  a  matter  of  time  when  we  will 
have  to  face  that  question  with  Japan. 
Japan  will  no  more  permit  the  Mexicans 
to  commit  outrages  on  the  Japanese  than 
she  will  permit  us  to  do  it.  Some  idea 
of  the  conflicts  that  race  hatred  may 
breed  in  Mexico  will  be  gained  by  reading 
the  quotation  that  follows  from  "In 
Mexico  the  Land  of  Unrest,"  by  Henry 
Baerlin. 

In  the  preface  of  that  book  we  find  this 
description  of  a  "gentle  and  joyous  pas- 
sage at  arms"  of  the  Mexicans  with  the 
Chinese. 

"I  fancy  that  a  number  of  the  miscreants 
who,  owing  to  a  mere  misunderstanding, 
massacred  three  hundred  Chinamen  in  Tor- 
reon  not  long  since  —  some  were  cut  into 
small  pieces,  some  beheaded,  some  were  tied 
to  horses  by  their  queues  and  dragged  along 
the  streets,  while  others  had  their  arms  or 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      173 

legs  attached  to  different  horses  and  were 
torn  asunder,  some  were  stood  up  naked  in 
the  market  gardens  of  the  neighborhood  and 
given  over  as  so  many  targets  to  the  drunken 
marksmen,  thirteen  Chinese  employees  of 
Yu  Hop's  General  Store  were  haled  into  the 
street  and  killed  with  knives,  two  hundred 
Chinamen  were  sheltered  in  the  city  gaol, 
but  all  their  money  was  appropriated  and 
such  articles  of  clothing  as  the  warders  fan- 
cied. One  brave  girl  had  nine  of  them  con- 
cealed, and  calmly  she  denied  their  presence 
even  when  her  father  had  gone  out  to  argue 
with  the  mob  and  had  been  shot  for  being  on 
the  Chinese  side  —  a  number  of  these  mis- 
creants, I  fancy,  are  on  other  days  delightful 
citizens."  1 

Think  you  that  the  Japanese  would 
submit  to  that  without  war?  The  ac- 
count of  this  racial  outrage  may  be  over- 
drawn, but  judging  from  what  happened 
in  our  own  country  when  the  Chinese 
were  being  persecuted  prior  to  the  Ex- 
clusion Act,  there  is  nothing  inherently 

1  "The  Mexicans  are  descended,  on  the  one  side,"  says 
Mr.  Cunningham  Graham.  "  from  the  most  bloodthirsty  race 
of  Indians  that  the  Spanish  Conquerors  came  across,  and  on 
the  other  side  from  the  very  fiercest  elements  of  the  Spanish 
race  itself  —  elements  which  had  just  emerged  from  eight 
hundred  years  of  warfare  with  the  Moors." 


174         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

improbable  in  this  account.  It  is  no  worse 
than  the  Turkish  outrages  that  have  often 
been  committed  on  Christians  in  Asia 
Minor  or  in  Europe. 

China  has  submitted  to  all  such  out- 
rages because  for  centuries  she  has  been 
a  nation  of  peace,  but  the  time  is  not  far 
distant  when  she  will  do  so  no  longer. 

With  the  United  States,  a  nation  with 
a  government,  in  case  of  race  conflict, 
leading  to  insult  or  injury  to  Japanese, 
we  could  make  amends,  or  fight,  as  we 
chose,  and  we  would  probably  make 
amends. 

In  Mexico,  likely  at  any  time  to  be 
without  a  government,  as  she  is  now,  a 
conflict  with  Japan  would  be  very  apt  to 
result  like  the  recent  differences  between 
the  Turks  and  the  English  in  Egypt. 
The  Land  of  the  Montezumas  would 
become  a  Protectorate  of  the  Land  of 
Nippon  and  a  part  of  its  Empire  Power. 

The  Japanese  problem  would  then  be 
transferred  from  across  the  Pacific  to 
across  the  Rio  Grande,  and  Japanese  cotton 
mills  at  Guaymas  would  get  their  cotton 
from  the  cotton  fields  of  the  Colorado 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      175 

River  Valley.  They  would  transport  it 
by  water  down  the  Gulf  of  California  and 
would  develop  a  great  ocean  commerce 
from  the  territory  that  is  tributary  to  the 
Gulf  of  California.  That  includes  the 
whole  valley  of  the  Colorado  River  if  its 
transportation  facilities  were  adequately 
and  comprehensively  developed,  as  the 
Japanese  would  develop  them,  with  con- 
nections at  tidewater  between  the  rail- 
roads and  lines  of  ocean-going  Japanese 
steamers. 


CHAPTER  VII 

1  HE  potential  economic  strength  and 
creative  power  of  the  people  of  Japan  may  be 
illustrated  by  what  they  would  do  with  the 
Colorado  River  Valley  and  watershed  if  it 
were  to  become  Japanese  territory,  and  what 
we  must  do  with  it  if  we  are  to  hold  our 
ground  against  their  economic  competition 
in  the  eternal  racial  struggle  for  the  survival 
of  the  fittest. 

The  Colorado  River  has  been  aptly 
called  the  Nile  of  America.  There  is  a 
most  remarkable  resemblance.  In  the 
valley  of  this  American  Nile  another 
Egypt  could  be  created.  All  the  fertility, 
wealth,  population,  products,  art,  and 
romance  of  the  Land  of  the  Pharaohs 
could  be  reproduced  in  the  valley  of  this 
great  American  river.  A  city  as  large 
as  Alexandria  at  Yuma,  and  another  as 
large  as  Cairo  at  Parker,  are  quite  within 
reasonable  expectations  whenever  the 
resources  of  the  Colorado  River  country 
are  comprehensively  developed. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      177 

But  even  that  comparison  of  possi- 
bilities gives  no  adequate  conception  of 
what  might  be  accomplished  by  the  Jap- 
anese in  the  way  of  creative  development 
in  the  watershed  of  the  Colorado  River, 
and  the  adjoining  Inland  Basins. 

Another  Japanese  Empire  could  be 
made  there,  with  all  the  vast  productive 
power,  population,  and  national  wealth 
of  the  present  Land  of  Nippon.  That  is 
what  the  Japanese  would  do  with  it  if 
they  had  the  country  to  develop  accord- 
ing to  Japanese  economic  ideals  and 
their  methods  of  soil  cultivation  and  pro- 
duction. They  know  full  well  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  Colorado  River  Country. 
Already  the  Japanese  cultivators  of  the 
soil  are  at  the  Gateway  to  this  great  valley, 
just  below  the  international  boundary 
line  in  Mexico.  They  are  now  doing  there 
the  manual  labor  necessary  to  develop 
and  produce  crops  from  Mexican  lands 
owned  by  Americans  in  the  lower  delta  of 
the  Colorado  River. 

The  Japanese,  if  they  had  the  oppor- 
tunity, would  give  the  same  careful  study 
to  every  minute  detail  of  conquesting  the 


178         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

Colorado  River  Country  from  the  Desert 
that  they  gave  to  defeating  Russia  in  the 
war  they  fought  to  save  their  national 
existence  against  the  sea  power  and  land 
power  of  the  Russian  Empire. 

They  would  measure  the  water  that 
runs  to  waste,  as  we  have  done.  They 
would  select  and  plat  the  land  it  should 
be  used  to  irrigate,  which  we  have  not 
done.  They  would  survey  every  reser- 
voir site  in  the  Colorado  Canyon  and 
test  the  foundations,  which  we  have  not 
done.  They  would  ascertain  the  aggre- 
gate amount  of  electric  power  that  could 
be  generated  by  a  series  of  dams  in  the 
Colorado  Canyon,  which  we  have  not  as 
yet  done. 

They  would  estimate,  as  we  have  done, 
the  total  amount  of  sediment  carried  by 
the  river  every  year  into  the  Gulf  of 
California  and  wasted.  They  would  find 
that  the  Colorado  River  discharges  during 
an  average  year  into  the  Gulf  of  California 
338,000,000  tons  of  mud  and  silt  as  sus- 
pended matter,  and  in  addition  to  this 
19,490,000  tons  of  gypsum,  lime,  sodium 
chloride  and  other  salts, — in  all  a  total  of 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      179 

357,490,000  tons  each  year  of  fertilizing 
material.  It  is  enough  to  give  to  3,574,- 
900  acres  an  annual  fertilization  of  one 
hundred  tons  per  acre  of  this  marvelously 
rich  material  that  would  be  annually  car- 
ried by  the  water  to  the  land  if  proper 
scientific  methods  were  adopted  for  the 
reclamation  and  cultivation  of  the  avail- 
able irrigable  land,  which  is  over  three 
and  a  half  million  acres.  The  fertilization 
thus  given  to  the  land  would  be  of  value 
equal  to  that  with  which  the  Nile  has 
fertilized  Egypt  every  year  since  before 
the  dawn  of  history. 

They  would  find  that  the  total  run- 
off from  the  Colorado  River  watershed  is 
enough  to  irrigate  5,000,000  acres  of  land 
located  in  the  valley  of  the  river  below 
the  mouth  of  the  Colorado  Canyon.  They 
would  find  that  the  area  of  land  so  located 
that  can  be  irrigated  by  gravity  canals 
is  approximately  2,000,000  acres;  that 
probably  1,500,000  more  acres  can  be  irri- 
gated by  pumping  with  electric  power, 
and,  from  the  best  information  now 
obtainable,  that  the  irrigable  area,  allow- 
ing for  return  seepage,  can  eventually  be 


180         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

enlarged  another  1,500,000  acres,  making 
a  total  in  all  of  5,000,000  irrigable  acres 
in  the  lower  Colorado  River  Country,  in- 
cluding the  Imperial  Valley.  If  the  Inland 
Basin  in  California,  Nevada  and  Utah 
were  included  with  the  entire  watershed 
of  the  Colorado  River,  and  all  lands  ir- 
rigable from  underground  sources  were  in- 
cluded, and  the  area  estimated  to  be  irri- 
gable were  increased  to  the  fullest  extent 
that  it  would  ultimately  be  enlarged  by 
return  seepage,  they  would  find  they 
could  eventually  irrigate  more  than  12,- 
500,000  acres,  which  is  as  much  land 
as  is  now  irrigated  and  cultivated  in 
Japan. 

They  would  figure  on  acreculture  rather 
than  agriculture,  and  would  investigate  to 
the  minutest  detail  the  problem  of  fer- 
tilization. They  would  figure  on  handling 
the  silt  of  the  Colorado  River  just  as  the 
silt  of  the  Nile  is  handled  in  Egypt,  fer- 
tilizing as  large  an  area  as  possible  with 
it.  The  Colorado  River  carries  silt  that  is 
very  fine  and  enough  of  it  could  be 
carried  in  the  water  every  year  to  prac- 
tically every  irrigated  field,  to  maintain 


THE   PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      181 

the  incredible  fertility  and  productiveness 
of  the  bottom  lands  and  increase  that  of 
the  mesa  lands. 

They  would  look  for  phosphate,  potash, 
and  nitrogen  for  fertilizers.  They  would 
find  that  an  inexhaustible  supply  of  potash 
could  be  manufactured  from  the  giant 
kelp  beds  of  the  Pacific  Coast.  They 
would  learn  that  there  are  in  the  territory 
included  in  the  drainage  basin  of  the 
Colorado  River  unlimited  deposits  of 
phosphate  rock  from  which  all  needed 
phosphate  could  be  mined.  Nitrogen, 
they  would  ascertain,  could  be  produced 
from  the  air  in  immense  quantities  by  the 
use  of  the  electric  power  which  could  be 
developed  without  limit  in  the  canyon  of 
the  Colorado  River. 

They  would  utilize  for  that  purpose  all 
the  vast  surplus  of  electric  power  from 
the  Colorado  River  as  it  whirls  and 
plunges  down  the  most  stupendous  river 
gorge  in  the  world.  In  addition  to  pro- 
ducing all  they  needed  to  fertilize  their 
own  lands  they  would  produce  enough 
nitrogen,  potash  and  phosphates  to  supply 
the  markets  of  the  world. 


182         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

The  land,  the  water,  and  the  fertilizer 
being  thus  assured,  they  would  find  the 
climate  to  be  such  that  even  the  intensive 
methods  of  gardening  now  customary  in 
Japan,  would  give  no  idea  of  the  possi- 
bilities of  acreage  production  in  the 
Colorado  River  Valley.  In  that  valley 
acreculture  would  be  hothouse  culture 
out-of-doors.  The  hot  climate  of  the 
country  would  be  found,  when  this  eco- 
nomic survey  of  it  was  made,  to  be  its 
greatest  asset. 

They  would  find  that  every  product  of 
the  tropical  and  semi-tropical  countries  of 
the  world  could  be  here  produced  to  per- 
fection. They  would  find  that  by  actual 
experience  extending  over  many  years,  an 
acre  of  land  in  such  a  climate,  closely  cul- 
tivated and  abundantly  fertilized,  and 
cropped  several  times  a  year,  would  pro- 
duce from  $1000  to  $2000  net  profit 
annually  and  even  more,  depending  on 
the  skill  of  the  cultivator. 

They  would  find  that  the  skilled  soil- 
cultivators  of  Japan  could  by  this  system 
of  hothouse  culture  out-of-doors,  pro- 
vide all  the  food  for  an  average  family 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      183 

for  a  year,  and  produce  over  and  above 
that  an  average  of  $1000  net  profit  per 
acre  every  year. 

They  would  find  that  the  Colorado 
River  would  ultimately  need  to  be  canal- 
ized from  Yuma  to  the  Needles,  and  from 
Yuma  to  the  head  of  tidewater  from  the 
Gulf  of  California.  They  would  build 
a  sea  level  navigable  canal  from  the 
Imperial  Valley  by  way  of  Volcano  Lake 
or  the  Laguna  de  Salada  to  the  Gulf 
of  California.  Then  the  products  from 
this  wonderfully  prolific  country  would 
be  shipped  by  water  to  every  seaport  of 
the  world.  Through  the  Panama  Canal 
they  could  reach  every  seaport  on  the 
Atlantic  Coast.  By  transshipment  at 
New  Orleans  they  would  connect  with 
a  river  system  20,000  miles  in  extent  for 
the  distribution  of  their  products  to  in- 
land territory. 

They  would  calculate  the  cost  of  rec- 
lamation and  the  value  of  the  reclaimed 
land,  measured  by  its  productive  power. 
They  would  figure  that  they  could  afford 
to  spend  on  the  reclamation  of  the  land  at 
least  an  amount  equal  to  the  value  of 


184         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

one  year's  production  from  the  land. 
That  would  be  $1000  per  acre.  Figuring 
only  on  the  5,000,000  acres  that  could  be 
eventually  reclaimed  in  the  valley  of  the 
Colorado  River  below  the  canyon,  they 
would  find  that  it  would  justify  a  total 
expenditure  of  five  billion  dollars. 

Some  enterprising  American  Congres- 
sional Economist  would  then  tell  them 
that  they  surely  could  not  contemplate 
spending  that  much  on  anything  but  a  war. 
They  would  tell  him  that  they  were  going 
into  a  war  with  the  Desert  and  they  pro- 
posed to  triumph  in  it,  just  as  they  tri- 
umphed in  the  war  with  Russia.  There 
would  be  this  difference:  all  they  spent 
on  the  Russian  War  was  gone  past  re- 
covery. They  had  to  spend  it  or  cease  to 
exist  as  a  nation.  In  this  war  with  the 
Desert  they  would  spend  five  billion 
dollars,  and  for  it  they  would  create  a 
country  that  would  produce  food  worth 
five  billion  dollars  a  year  every  year 
through  all  future  time. 

Then  the  American  Speculator  would 
come  on  the  scene  with  his  accumulated 
wisdom  gained  through  many  failures  of 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      185 

colonization  schemes  because  there  were 
no  colonists  or  not  enough  to  keep  up 
with  the  interest  on  the  bonds  issued. 
The  American  Speculator  would  warn  the 
Japanese  against  such  a  gigantic  blunder 
as  they  were  about  to  make  in  undertaking 
such  a  stupendous  colonization  scheme. 

And  the  Japanese  Statesmen  and  Fin- 
anciers would  point  out  to  him  not  only 
that  they  had  all  the  colonists  they  needed 
right  at  home  in  Japan,  but  that  instead 
of  its  being  necessary  to  spend  a  large 
sum  of  money  to  induce  those  colonists  to 
emigrate  to  the  new  lands,  they  were  hav- 
ing much  trouble  now  to  keep  the  colonists 
from  going  to  the  Pacific  Coast  where 
they  are  not  wanted.  They  would  explain 
that  they  are  overcrowded  in  Japan;  that 
their  surplus  population  must  go  some- 
where; that  they  are  the  most  skilled 
gardeners  and  orchardists  in  the  world; 
that  the  same  men  who  would  build  the 
irrigation  works,  and  the  power  plants, 
would  settle  right  down  on  the  reclaimed 
lands,  glad  to  get  an  acre  apiece,  and  live 
on  it  and  cultivate  it  with  their  families. 

So  the  Japanese  in  this  thorough  way 


186         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

would  go  at  this  great  work  of  wresting 
a  new  Japanese  Empire  from  the  Desert. 
They  would  not  do  any  construction  work 
until  they  had  made  a  complete  compre- 
hensive plan  of  every  detail  of  this  new 
empire  they  were  starting  to  build.  Then 
they  would  go  to  the  Colorado  Canyon 
and  begin  by  building  a  great  diversion 
dam  as  far  down  the  canyon  as  might  be 
practicable  to  lift  the  water  high  enough 
to  carry  it  in  high  line  canal  systems  along 
both  sides  of  the  valley,  and  to  bring  it 
out  on  the  mesa  lands  and  use  it  where 
the  land  most  needs  the  silt  for  a  fertilizer. 
They  would  figure  on  first  reclaiming  all 
the  mesa  land  on  which  the  water  could  in 
this  way  be  used,  and  then  they  would 
build  pumping  plants  with  which  to  irri- 
gate the  more  elevated  lands. 

They  would  reclaim  the  mesa  land  first 
because  every  acre  of  mesa  land  that  was 
reclaimed  would  serve  as  a  sponge  to  soak 
up  the  flood  water.  By  carrying  out  that 
plan  they  would  eventually  relieve  the 
lowlands  in  the  floor  of  the  valley  from 
all  danger  of  overflow.  They  would  not 
have  to  spend  anything  to  control  the 


THE   PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      187 

floods  of  the  Colorado  River.  There 
would  be  no  floods.  The  Japanese  would 
begin  at  the  right  end  of  the  problem, 
and  build  big  enough  at  the  start  to  solve 
it  as  a  whole,  comprehensively.  Their 
plan  would  be  to  use  up  every  drop  of 
the  flood  water  by  irrigating  land  with  it. 
There  would  never  at  any  time  of  the 
year  be  any  water  running  to  waste  in 
the  lower  river.  There  would  never  be  in 
the  main  river  more  than  enough  water  to 
supply  the  canals  that  irrigated  the  low- 
lands of  the  lower  delta.  The  canal  from 
Yuma  to  the  Gulf,  and  the  canal  from 
Yuma  to  the  Needles,  would  be,  not  irri- 
gating canals,  but  drainage  canals,  adapted 
also  to  navigation. 

The  Japanese  would  control  and  utilize 
all  the  water  that  now  runs  to  waste  in 
the  Colorado  River.  They  would  save 
and  use,  not  a  part  of  it,  but  every  drop 
of  it.  They  would,  as  they  have  done  in 
Japan,  preserve  the  sources  of  the  water 
supplies  from  destruction  by  overgrazing, 
deforestation,  and  erosion.  They  would 
build  the  Charleston  Reservoir,  on  the  San 
Pedro.  They  would  stop  the  floods  that 


188         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

now  devastate  that  valley  and  wash  away 
and  destroy  its  farm  lands.  They  would 
build  the  Verde  Reservoir,  the  Agua  Fria 
Reservoir,  the  San  Carlos  Reservoir,  and 
every  other  reservoir  on  every  tributary 
of  the  Colorado  required  to  control  for 
use  the  immense  volume  of  water  that  we 
now  waste. 

They  would  go  into  Colorado,  Utah, 
and  Nevada,  and  do  the  same  thing  in 
those  States.  They  would  build  great 
dams  and  reservoirs  in  the  Canyon  of  the 
Colorado  River,  and  would  produce  there- 
from electric  power  enough  to  furnish 
power  for  every  farm  and  mine  and  city 
in  the  whole  Colorado  River  Country, 
and  power  to  pump  back  onto  the  mesas 
water  which  had  once  done  duty  by  irri- 
gating the  lower  lands. 

They  would  reclaim  in  the  Inland  Basin 
and  the  Colorado  River  Country  as 
much  land  as  is  now  cultivated  in  Japan. 
They  would  subdivide  it  into  Garden 
Homes  for  their  industrious  tillers  of  the 
soil.  They  would  eventually  put  on  such 
Garden  Homes  as  many  of  their  land- 
cultivators  and  gardener-soldiers  with 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      189 

their  families  as  they  now  have  in  Japan. 
They  would  be  more  prosperous  because 
the  land  is  more  fertile  and  the  crops 
would  be  more  valuable. 

Their  system  of  land  cultivation  would 
not  be  farming,  as  we  understand  it.  It 
would  be  gardening,  of  the  closest  and 
most  intensive  kind.  Such  a  system  of 
land  cultivation  in  the  Colorado  River 
Valley,  under  their  system  of  development, 
would  produce  as  much  per  acre  as  hot- 
house culture  under  glass  in  a  cold  climate. 
Everything  that  can  be  raised  in  Japan 
they  would  produce.  Everything  that 
can  be  raised  in  Egypt  or  Arabia,  or 
anywhere  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean, they  would  produce. 

They  would  make  of  the  Colorado 
River  Valley  the  greatest  date-producing 
country  of  the  world.  Oranges,  lemons, 
grape-fruit,  and  every  known  tropical  and 
semi-tropical  fruit  of  commerce  would  be 
raised  by  them  in  this  American  Valley  of 
the  Nile.  They  would  establish  a  system 
of  land  tillage  by  their  intensive  methods 
which  would  support  in  comfort  and  plenty 
a  family  on  every  acre.  They  would 


190         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

eventually,  in  South  California,  Arizona, 
Utah,  Nevada,  and  on  the  Colorado  River 
in  Mexico,  put  12,500,000  acres  under 
such  cultivation  and  settle  it  with  as  dense 
a  population  as  they  now  have  in  Japan, 
where  they  sustain  30,000,000  rural  people 
on  12,500,000  acres. 

That  would  leave  them  many  millions 
of  acres  —  of  the  higher,  colder,  and  less 
fertile  lands  on  the  watersheds  of  the 
tributary  streams  in  Arizona,  Nevada, 
and  Utah,  for  grazing  and  timber  growing. 
The  population  sustained  by  these  indus- 
tries, added  to  that  which  would  be  sus- 
tained by  mining,  and  electrical  power, 
and  the  multitude  of  manufacturing  in- 
dustries which  they  would  establish,  would 
bring  the  total  population  of  the  Inland 
Basin  and  the  Colorado  River  Country, 
under  this  Japanese  development,  up  to 
fifty  million  people.  That  would  be  a  popu- 
lation as  large  as  that  which  now  bears  on  its 
shoulders  all  the  burdens  of  the  Japanese 
Empire,  including  its  army  and  navy. 

The  Japanese  would  pump  from  under- 
ground with  electric  power  the  last  possible 
drop  of  available  water  to  promote  surface 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      191 

production.  The  great  torrential  down- 
pours that  come  occasionally  in  that  coun- 
try would  be  controlled  by  systems  of 
embankments  and  soaked  into  the  ground 
to  replenish  the  underground  supplies 
instead  of  being  allowed  to  run  to  waste, 
carrying  destruction  in  their  path.  They 
would  from  their  dams  in  the  Colorado 
River  Canyon  develop  power  that  would 
pump  water  high  enough  to  reach  such 
vast  areas  of  rich  and  fertile  land  as  the 
Hualpi  Valley  —  at  least  enough  to  turn 
such  lands  into  forest  plantations  where 
water  enough  for  agriculture  could  not  be 
provided  for  the  land. 

Add  to  the  wealth  they  would  produce 
from  their  garden  farms  the  wealth  they 
would  dig  from  the  mines,  develop  from 
the  water  power,  and  produce  in  their 
factories,  and  they  would  create  more 
annual  wealth  from  this  now  desolate  and 
uninhabited  region  in  the  Colorado  River 
Country  than  is  to-day  annually  produced 
in  the  Japanese  Empire.  And  more  than 
that,  they  would  be  producing  a  strong 
and  virile  people.  Every  man  would  be 
a  soldier  in  time  of  need  and  a  Japanese 


192         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

army  of  more  than  five  million  men  would 
be  able  to  take  the  field  at  a  moment's 
warning,  leaving  the  youths  who  were  too 
young  and  the  men  who  were  too  old  for 
military  service,  with  the  aid  of  the  women 
and  children,  to  cultivate  the  acre  garden 
homes. 

Why  is  not  all  this  done  by  the  Cauca- 
sian race  who  now  control  this  great 
valley  of  the  American  Nile  —  the  people 
whose  flag  flies  over  it? 

Why,  with  all  this  incredible  wealth 
lying  undeveloped  under  our  feet,  do  we 
not  seize  the  necessary  tools  and  develop 
it  ourselves? 

Why  indeed?  The  facts  stated  are 
facts,  physical  facts  not  to  be  denied. 
Why  do  we  leave  this  empire  untouched? 

Because  thus  far  our  only  system  of  de- 
velopment has  been  speculation  and  human 
exploitation. 

Because  we  seem  to  have  known  no 
way  of  settling  a  new  country  except  to 
permit  a  generation  of  speculators  to  skim 
the  cream  before  the  actual  tillers  of  the 
soil  get  a  chance  to  cultivate  it. 

Because    the    agricultural    immigrants 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      193 

from  Italy — the  ideal  settlers  for  the 
Colorado  River  Valley  —  are  being  herded 
in  Concentration  Camps  in  the  tene- 
ments of  the  congested  cities.  Their  skill 
as  gardeners  is  wasted,  their  knowledge 
of  art  and  handicraft  lost,  their  children 
morally  and  physically  degenerated,  and 
their  racial  strength  diminished.  Gun- 
men and  black-handers  are  evolved  from 
that  evil  environment.  We  are  rotting  a 
race  of  virile  rural  people,  instead  of  di- 
recting the  vast  human  power  inherent  in 
them  to  creating  a  new  Valley  of  the  Nile, 
and  building  a  new  Alexandria  at  Yuma 
and  a  new  Cairo  at  Parker,  and  planting 
every  family  that  was  located  on  a  Garden 
Home  in  that  marvelously  rich  country 
in  another  Garden  of  Eden. 

Because  the  railroads  and  the  water 
power  syndicates,  with  their  allies  the  War 
Department  engineers,  seem  to  have  the 
power  to  perpetuate  this  system  of  Specu- 
lation and  Human  Exploitation,  and  in 
consequence  to  dedicate  the  Colorado 
River  Valley  to  desolation.  They  appar- 
ently have  the  power  to  inject  some  deadly 
poison  into  the  arteries  and  veins  of  con- 


194         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

ventions  and  congresses  and  legislative 
bodies  that  makes  action  impossible  along 
any  line  of  constructive  effort  that  would 
free  the  people  from  the  thralldom  of  cor- 
porate opposition  to  government  con- 
struction. 

Australia  and  New  Zealand,  —  Japan, 
Sweden,  Norway,  and  Switzerland  have 
escaped  from  this  thralldom  and  are  a  free 
and  independent  people,  capable  of  direct- 
ing the  development  of  their  resources, 
and  they  are  doing  it.  The  people  of  the 
United  States  have  abolished  human  slav- 
ery, but  they  have  been  unable  as  yet  to 
free  themselves  from  the  domination  of 
organized  capital  or  the  influence  of  the 
aggregated  appetite  of  an  army  of  specu- 
lators and  exploiters  of  our  national 
resources.  As  a  nation  we  are  shackled 
by  the  Spirit  of  Speculation  which  in- 
sidiously opposes  any  legislation  that 
would  save  our  resources  from  speculative 
exploitation  or  directly  develop  them  by 
government  construction  for  the  benefit 
of  the  people. 

Those  who  comprise  this  speculative 
class,  which  opposes  all  such  constructive 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      195 

legislation,  on  the  ground  that  it  is  pater- 
nalism, are  the  ones  who  cry  loudest  for 
the  increase  of  Militarism.  They  want  an 
army  hired  to  defend  the  nation  and  their 
property  from  attack.  They  constantly 
advocate  increasing  the  $250,000,000  a 
year  we  now  spend  on  our  army  and  navy. 
Then  they  cry  economy  when  it  is  proposed 
to  spend  less  than  half  that  amount  every 
year  throughout  the  whole  United  States  to 
defend  the  country  against  the  devastating 
forces  of  Nature.  As  a  result  the  people 
are  unable  to  safeguard  against  the  re- 
currence of  such  appalling  catastrophies 
as  the  Ohio  Valley  floods  of  1913  or 
the  Mississippi  Valley  floods  of  1912 
and  1913. 

The  creation  of  a  new  empire,  more  pop- 
ulous, and  with  a  people  living  in  greater 
comfort  and  producing  more  wealth  each 
year  in  the  Colorado  River  Country  and 
Inland  Basin  than  is  produced  in  Japan 
to-day,  cannot  be  permitted  to  be  done 
by  the  Japanese  because  the  territory 
belongs  to  the  United  States.  And  this 
country  cannot  be  allowed  to  do  it  from 
the  viewpoint  of  the  speculators,  unless 


196         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

it  can  be  accomplished  for  the  benefit 
of  private  speculation.  The  speculators 
insist  they  must  be  free  from  any  re- 
strictions that  would  prevent  them  from 
exploiting  generations  yet  unborn  who  will 
till  the  soil  and  use  the  water  power  in 
their  industries. 

Let  the  Speculators  have  their  way  and 
what  will  happen? 

Already  the  inconceivable  fertility  of 
this  region  is  known  to  the  Japanese. 
Already  they  are  quietly  absorbing  the 
opportunities  to  cultivate  its  land,  either 
as  laborers  for  American  Landowners 
below  the  line  in  Mexico,  or  as  tenants  in 
the  great  Imperial  Valley  in  California. 
They  are  as  familiar  as  we  are  with  the 
Orange  Groves  of  Sonora.  They  know 
that  on  the  Pacific  Coast  below  Guaymas 
there  are  millions  of  acres  of  country  just 
as  beautiful  as  Southern  California,  but 
which  is  now  unreclaimed,  where  the 
sparkling  streams  from  the  Sierra  Madres 
course  uselessly  through  thickets  of  wild 
lemon  trees  on  their  way  to  the  ocean. 

If  we  wait  for  the  speculators  to  do  it, 
long  before  the  time  comes  when  they  can 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      197 

get  the  aid  from  the  national  government 
necessary  to  enable  them  to  reclaim  and 
settle  the  desert  lands,  and  develop  the 
water  power  of  the  Colorado  River,  there 
will  be  a  Japanese  population  of  many 
millions  in  the  Colorado  River  Delta  be- 
low the  line  and  on  the  Pacific  Coast  of 
Mexico.  They  will  go  to  Mexico  to  culti- 
vate the  soil  and  live  on  it.  The  Caucasian 
as  a  rule  goes  to  Mexico  to  get  land  away 
from  the  Mexicans  and  speculate  on  it  or 
monopolize  it.  So  long  as  that  is  our  sys- 
tem of  development,  we  cannot  complain 
if  the  industrious  Japanese  go  there  and 
live  on  the  land  and  produce  food  from  it 
to  help  feed  the  people  of  all  the  earth. 
The  American  goes  to  Mexico  in  the  hope 
of  making  enough  money  to  be  able  to 
live  without  work.  The  Japanese  goes 
there  to  get  an  opportunity  to  work  and 
to  dig  his  living  from  Mother  Earth  by 
his  own  labor.  Which  will  prevail,  think 
you,  in  the  struggle  to  possess  the  unoc- 
cupied and  untilled  lands  of  the  Pacific 
shores  of  Mexico? 

We  are  told  we  must  employ  more  sol- 
diers to  protect  us.    The  Japanese  colo- 


198         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

nists,  wherever  they  go,  will  go  with  both 
a  hoe  and  a  gun,  and  will  protect  them- 
selves. 

If  the  Colorado  River  Valley  is  to  remain 
dedicated  to  speculation  and  exploitation, 
we  could  not  maintain  upon  its  deserts  a 
standing  army  large  enough,  if  we  should 
have  a  war  with  Japan,  to  make  even  a 
pretense  of  protecting  it  from  invasion 
from  the  south  by  the  Japanese  after  they 
have  settled  those  Mexican  lands.  They 
would  not  stop  with  taking  the  Philippines 
and  Hawaii,  California,  Oregon,  and  Wash- 
ington. They  would  sweep  up  from  the 
south  with  an  army  of  a  million  men  from 
Mexico  and  extend  their  dominion  over 
all  the  arid  region.  From  the  Cascade 
and  the  Sierra  Nevada  Ranges  to  the 
crest  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  from 
the  Canadian  line  to  Mexico  would  be- 
come Japanese  territory. 

But  that  is  too  long  a  time  in  the  future, 
the  average  self-complacent  American 
says,  to  be  of  any  immediate  interest.  It 
would  take  the  Japanese  more  than  a 
generation  to  put  a  million  colonists  in 
Mexico.  Perhaps  it  would.  It  will  take 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      199 

the  Japanese  a  generation  to  double  the 
Japanese  population  on  the  shores  of 
the  Pacific  in  Asia  and  America.  Now 
they  have  only  fifty  million  people.  In 
one  generation  more  they  will  have  a 
hundred  million  and  a  goodly  portion  of 
them  will  be  in  America.  Is  it  any  too 
soon  for  this  nation  to  begin  right  now  to 
build  the  safeguards  against  that  danger? 
Bear  in  mind  that  there  are  men  and 
women  now  living  who  remember  Chicago 
when  there  was  nothing  there  but  Old 
Fort  Dearborn  and  a  few  log  houses. 
Bear  in  mind  that  in  less  than  ten  years, 
from  1900  to  1908,  more  than  65,000 
Japanese  emigrated  to  Hawaii,  and  that 
in  a  single  year,  1907,  30,226  Japanese 
came  to  the  United  States,  and  that  in 
1909  the  number  of  trained  and  seasoned 
Japanese  soldiers  in  Hawaii  exceeded  the 
entire  field  army  of  the  United  States. 
How  long  would  it  take  Japan  to  put  a 
million  colonists  —  men  of  military  age  — 
on  the  Pacific  Coast  of  Mexico? 

In  "The  Great  Illusion,"  Norman  Angell 
argues  that  war  must  cease  because  it 
does  not  pay.  Would  that  argument 


200         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

apply  in  case  of  a  war  between  the  United 
States  and  Japan,  with  reference  to  the 
Colorado  River  Country  and  the  rest  of 
the  territory  now  lying  in  the  United 
States  between  the  Rocky  Mountains  on 
the  east  and  the  Pacific  Ocean  on  the 
west? 

In  the  Colorado  River  Country  the 
Japanese  would  get  5,000,000  acres  capa- 
ble of  being  made  to  produce  by  their 
system  of  cultivation  a  net  profit  of  $1,000 
an  acre,  over  and  above  a  living  for  its 
cultivators.  That  would  make  a  total  of 
five  billion  dollars  a  year. 

In  addition  they  would  get  12,500,000 
acres  in  the  Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin 
Valley  in  California  which  if  they  pro- 
duced from  it  only  a  net  profit  of  $500  an 
acre  every  year  —  would  yield  a  total  of 
two  and  a  half  billion  dollars  annually. 
Oregon,  Washington  and  Idaho  would  add 
as  much  more  land,  making  another  two 
and  a  half  billion  dollars  a  year. 

That  is  a  total  annual  production  to 
which  the  Japanese  would  develop  this 
land  within  a  generation  of  Ten  billion 
dollars  a  year  —  and  very  little  of  the 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OP  PEACE      201 

land  is  today  cultivated.     Most  of  it  is 
unreclaimed  desert. 

In  addition  to  this  the  mineral  output 
of  the  states  lying  entirely  within  that 
territory  for  1913  was  as  follows: 

Arizona $71,000,000 

California 100,700,000 

Idaho 24,500,000 

Nevada 37,800,000 

Oregon 3,500,000 

Utah 53,000,000 

Washington 17,500,000 


Total $308,000,000 

In  addition,  a  considerable  portion  of 
the  states  of  Colorado,  New  Mexico  and 
Wyoming  lies  within  the  territory  under 
consideration.  The  mineral  output  of 
these  states  for  1913  was  as  follows: 

Colorado $54,000,000 

New  Mexico 17,800,000 

Wyoming 12,500,000 


Total $84,300,000 

The  total  mineral  production  of  all  the 
above  named  States,  and  including  Mon- 
tana, for  the  ten  years  ending  with  1913 
was  $3,322,003,895. 

The  lands  in  the  delta  of  the  Colorado 
River  where  the  Japanese  are  now  settling 
comprise  practically  a  million  acres  of  the 


202         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

most  marvelously  fertile  land  in  all  the 
world. 

The  Japanese  who  are  now  going  into 
the  delta  country  of  the  Colorado  River 
are  not  going  where  they  are  unwelcome. 
The  American  who  wants  to  use  their 
labor  to  cultivate  his  land,  in  order  that 
he  may  get  a  profit  from  it  without  work- 
ing the  land  himself,  is  busy  starting  the 
Asiatic  invasion  that  will  eventually  sweep 
over  that  Land  of  Promise.  It  is  an  in- 
vasion that  will  ultimately  transfer  that 
country  from  American  to  Asiatic  control, 
unless  the  American  people  wake  up  and 
decide  without  delay  to  do  the  one  and 
only  thing  that  can  possibly  prevent  this 
from  happening. 

What  is  that  "one  and  only  thing" 
that  they  must  do  to  save  the  Colorado 
River  Country  for  our  own  people? 

Why  it  is  to  occupy,  cultivate,  use,  and 
possess  it  ourselves,  and  do  with  it  exactly 
what  the  Japanese  would  do  with  it  if  they 
possessed  it  as  a  part  of  the  territory  of  the 
Empire  of  Japan. 

What  would  have  to  be  done  to  ac- 
complish that  has  already  been  told. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      203 

How  is  it  to  be  done? 

By  thrusting  to  one  side  the  speculators 
and  exploiters  and  demanding  from  Con- 
gress the  necessary  legislative  machinery 
and  money  to  conquest  the  Colorado  River 
Country  from  the  desert,  with  exactly 
the  same  inexorable  insistence  with  which 
the  money  would  be  demanded  if  it  were 
needed  for  defense  against  an  invading 
German  force  that  had  landed  in  New 
England  and  was  marching  on  New  York; 
with  exactly  the  same  irresistible  popular 
cyclone  that  will  roar  about  the  ears  of 
Congress  in  the  future,  if  their  supine 
neglect  now  does  some  day  actually  lead 
to  a  Japanese  invasion  of  the  United  States. 

If  the  people  of  the  United  States  can 
get  their  feet  out  of  the  quicksands 
of  land-speculation,  water-speculation, 
power-speculation,  and  the  operations  of 
water-power  syndicates,  they  can  create 
a  country  as  populous  and  powerful  as  the 
Japanese  Empire  in  the  Inland  Basin  and 
the  Colorado  River  Country.  If  we  will 
eliminate  that  one  great  obstacle,  we  can 
do  it  ourselves,  just  as  well  as  the  Japa- 
nese could  do  it.  Our  subserviency  to  the 


204         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

Spirit  of  Speculation  is  the  only  thing 
that  stands  in  the  way  of  it. 

Every  problem  involved  has  been  solved 
by  some  other  country  and  partly  solved 
by  our  own.  There  is  no  reason  why  the 
United  States  cannot  adopt  the  Australian 
and  New  Zealand  Systems  for  the  acquisi- 
tion, reclamation,  subdivision,  and  settle- 
ment of  land. 

There  is  no  reason  why  the  United 
States  should  not  control  its  water  power 
resources  on  such  a  stream  as  the  Colorado 
River;  and,  when  advisable,  build,  own, 
and  operate  power  plants  and  distribute 
power. 

Shall  we  admit  that  we  cannot  do  what 
Australia,  New  Zealand,  Norway,  Sweden, 
and  Switzerland  have  done? 

Under  the  United  States  Reclamation 
Act  we  have  already  undertaken  to  re- 
claim land  for  settlement,  and  to  build 
power  plants,  but  we  have  failed  to  safe- 
guard the  land  or  the  power  against  specu- 
lative acquisition.  However,  what  we 
have  already  accomplished  has  made  for 
progress,  and  makes  it  easier  to  do  what 
remains  to  be  done. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      205 

When  we  come  to  the  qualifications  of 
colonists,  and  the  necessity  that  they 
should  be  Homecrofters,  the  question 
becomes  more  difficult,  because  the  ma- 
jority of  the  people  of  the  United  States 
have  no  conception  of  the  possibilities  of 
acreproduction  or  acreculture  by  a  skilled 
and  scientifically  trained  truck-gardener 
and  fruit-grower  and  poultry-raiser. 
There  are  innumerable  instances  where 
truck  gardens  along  the  Atlantic  Coast, 
on  Long  Island,  and  in  New  Jersey,  Vir- 
ginia, and  Florida,  are  producing  a  thou- 
sand dollars  worth  of  vegetables  per 
acre  every  year.  It  is  a  most  common 
thing  for  berry-growers  to  realize  that 
acreage  product  from  an  acre  of  berries 
in  Louisiana  or  Washington.  Celery, 
asparagus,  lettuce,  onions,  and  many  other 
crops  will  yield  as  much  when  properly 
fertilized  and  cultivated.  Anyone  who 
doubts  this  can  find  ample  proof  of  it  at 
Duluth,  Minnesota,  or  in  California  or 
Texas.  Another  thing  should  be  borne 
in  mind.  One  acre  of  land  in  the  Colorado 
River  Valley  is  the  equivalent  of  five 
acres  in  a  cold  climate.  Crops  may  be 


206         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

planted  and  matured  so  rapidly  in  that 
hot  climate  that  plant  growth  more  re- 
sembles hothouse  forcing  than  ordinary 
out-of-door  truck  gardening.  Another  im- 
portant fact  is  that  all  the  tropical  and 
semi-tropical  fruits  grow  to  perfection  in 
that  valley. 

This  whole  subject  is  exhaustively  eluci- 
dated in  "Fields,  Factories  and  Work- 
shops," by  Prince  Kropotkin,  published  by 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons  of  New  York.  No 
one  will  form  an  opinion  adverse  to  the 
possibilities  of  acreculture  after  reading 
that  book. 

Successful  acreculture  requires,  how- 
ever, a  man  who  knows  how.  The  Japa- 
nese know  how.  The  Chinese  know  how. 
The  Belgians  know  how.  Many  of  the 
French,  Germans,  and  Italians  know  how. 
The  Americans,  with  few  exceptions,  do 
not  know  how,  but  they  can  be  taught. 
They  will  seize  the  opportunity  to  learn 
as  soon  as  it  is  open  to  them  as  part  of  a 
large  national  plan.  Every  Homecroft 
Settlement  created  in  the  Colorado  River 
Valley  should  be  a  great  educational 
institution,  a  training  school  to  teach 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      207 

men  and  women  how  to  raise  fruit, 
vegetables,  and  poultry,  and  how  to  pre- 
pare their  products  for  market,  and  how 
to  market  them,  and  how  to  get  their  own 
food  from  their  own  acre  by  their  own 
labor. 

Thousands  of  the  immigrants  now  com- 
ing to  the  United  States  from  Southern 
Europe  already  know  how  to  do  all  this 
and  would  make  ideal  colonists  for  the 
Colorado  River  Valley. 

Thousands  are  out  of  work  who,  if  healthy 
and  physically  fit,  could  be  trained  to 
garden  in  a  year;  to  be  good  gardeners  in 
three  years;  and  to  be  scientific  experts 
in  gardening  in  five  years. 

In  the  event  of  a  war  under  existing  con- 
ditions we  would  have  to  train  a  million 
recruits  to  be  soldiers.  It  is  equally  cer- 
tain that  men  can  be  trained  to  be  gar- 
deners and  Homecrofters.  It  takes  longer 
to  train  a  Homecrofter  than  to  train 
a  soldier,  but  it  is  only  a  question  of 
time. 

It  can  be  done  and  it  will  be  done  by  the 
United  States  as  a  measure  of  national 
defense  as  soon  as  the  people  can  be 


208         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

brought  to  realize  the  great  fundamental 
fact  that  the  only  way  they  can  provide 
as  many  soldiers  as  they  might  need  in 
some  great  national  emergency  is  to  begin 
in  time  of  peace  —  and  that  means  now 
—  and  train  them  to  be  both  Homecroft- 
ers  and  soldiers,  as  the  Japanese  are 
trained.  The  Japanese  are  a  nation  of 
Homecrofters.  The  Homecroft  Reserv- 
ists who  should  be  trained  for  national 
defense  by  the  United  States,  will  get 
their  living  as  gardeners  and  Home- 
crofters  when  they  are  not  needed  as 
soldiers,  or  until  they  are  needed  as  sol- 
diers, as  is  the  case  in  Japan  with  their 
organized  reserve  of  1,170,000  men  and 
the  great  majority  of  their  unorganized 
reserve  of  7,021,780  men. 

The  Drainage  Basin  of  the  Colorado 
River  has  an  area  of  244,000  square  miles. 
Japan  has  an  area  of  147,655  square 
miles,  less  than  the  area  of  the  drainage 
basin  of  the  Colorado  River  in  Arizona 
and  New  Mexico.  Arizona  alone  con- 
tains 143,956  square  miles,  and  has  a 
population  of  only  204,354.  Japan  has 
a  population  of  52,200,200.  She  now  sus- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      209 

tains  in  the  Home  Country  a  standing 
army  at  peace  strength  of  217,032,  with 
Reserves  of  1,170,000,  making  a  total 
war  strength  of  about  1,400,000  and  she 
has  available  for  duty  but  unorganized  a 
total  of  7,021,780. 

The  same  Japanese  System  with  the 
same  Japanese  population  in  the  Colo- 
rado River  Country  would  sustain  an 
army  of  the  same  strength.  And  they 
can  do  it  on  the  Pacific  Coast  of  Mexico, 
or  on  the  Pacific  Coast  of  South  America, 
or  anywhere  else  in  as  good  a  climate 
where  they  can  get  a  territory  of  147,000 
square  miles,  of  which  12,500,000  acres  can 
be  irrigated  and  intensively  cultivated. 

Is  it  not  evident  that  it  is  the  economic 
potentialities  of  the  Japanese  race  that  we 
must  meet? 

We  can  do  it  in  the  Colorado  River 
Country.  In  the  main  valley  below  the 
mouth  of  the  Colorado  Canyon  we  can 
maintain  a  permanent  reserve  of  1,000,- 
000  men,  Homecrofters  and  gardeners  in 
time  of  peace,  soldiers  in  time  of  war, 
and  all  organized,  trained,  and  equipped  — 
instantly  ready  for  any  emergency.  All 


210         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

we  would  have  to  do  to  accomplish  that, 
would  be  to  reclaim  and  colonize  the  land, 
and  train  the  colonists  to  be  Homecrofters, 
and  then  apply  the  entire  Military  System 
of  Switzerland  or  Australia  to  this  one 
small  tract  of  one  million  acres  of  land  in 
the  Colorado  River  Valley,  with  conven- 
iently adjacent  territory  in  Arizona  and 
California  in  the  drainage  basin  of  the 
Colorado  River. 

It  would  be  entirely  practicable  to  do 
that,  because  the  National  Government 
would  control  the  School  System,  and 
would  control  the  System  of  Life  of  the 
community  and  adapt  it  to  the  Homecroft 
Reserve  System.  Every  one  of  1,000,000 
Homecrofters  could  leave  his  acre  without 
hindrance  to  any  organized  industry  and 
without  jeopardizing  the  welfare  of  his 
family.  The  objections  to  a  Reserve  of 
Citizen  Soldiery  in  the  ordinary  communi- 
ties of  the  United  States  would  have  no 
application  in  these  communities  that  had 
been  created  for  the  purpose  of  furnishing 
soldiers  trained  when  needed  in  time  of 
war,  as  well  as  to  develop  the  highest  type 
of  citizenship  in  time  of  peace. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE 


A  start  could  be  made  with  100,000 
acres;  100,000  gardeners;  100,000  sol- 
diers. The  land  and  water  required  for 
that  could  be  located  to-morrow  and  con- 
struction work  begun  in  a  month.  This 
number  should  be  increased  as  rapidly  as 
the  land  could  be  reclaimed  and  colonized 
with  Homecrofters  in  acre  homes  and  the 
organization  of  new  communities  per- 
fected. The  Reserve  composed  of  Home- 
crofters  occupying  these  acre  homes  should 
be  known  as  the  Homecroft  Reserve. 

If  no  extension  of  this  proposed  Home- 
croft  Reserve  System  were  made  into  any 
other  section  of  the  country  there  would  be 
soldiers  enough  in  the  Colorado  River 
Valley  to  defend  the  Mexican  Border, 
the  Pacific  Coast,  and  the  Canadian  Border 
from  North  Dakota  to  Seattle,  at  any  time 
when  the  necessity  arose  for  such  defense. 

The  establishment  of  this  large  Home- 
croft  Reserve  in  the  Colorado  River 
Valley,  fully  trained  and  equipped  for 
military  service  at  a  moment's  notice, 
exactly  as  the  Reserves  of  Switzerland 
are  trained  and  equipped,  would  be  a 
complete  defense  against  any  danger  of 


OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

Japanese    invasion,   which    can    be    safe- 
guarded against  in  no  other  way. 

Is  it  not  better  to  begin  now  and  spend 
the  money  in  conquering  the  Desert  than  to 
wait  and  spend  it  conquering  Japan,  or 
Japan  and  China  combined? 


CHAPTER  VIII 

/  HE  value  of  the  proposed  Homecraft 
Reserve  System  as  a  force  for  national  de- 
fense would  have  been  demonstrated  in  the 
present  European  War  if  England  had,  years 
ago,  established  such  a  reserve  in  Scotland, 
instead  of  driving  thousands  of  Homecrofters 
to  other  lands  to  make  way  for  deer  parks 
and  hunting  grounds.  The  Scotch  Home- 
crofters,  if  that  system  for  a  Military  Re- 
serve had  been  established,  would  have 
been  just  such  soldiers  as  those  who  have 
made  the  glorious  record  of  the  Black  Watch 
and  the  Gordon  Highlanders  and  other 
famous  Scotch  regiments.  There  might 
just  as  well  as  not  have  been  a  million 
of  them  in  Scotland,  trained  and  hardy 
soldiers,  organized  and  equipped  as  the 
Reserves  of  Switzerland  are  completely  or- 
ganized to-day  and  ready  for  instant  mobi- 
lization. The  Scotch  Homecrofters  would 
have  been  getting  their  living  in  time  of 
peace  by  cultivating  their  little  crofts,  and 


214         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

as  fishermen,  and  would  have  been  always 
ready  to  fight  for  their  country  in  time  of 
war. 

Had  there  been  such  a  Homecroft  Re- 
serve in  Scotland,  with  a  million  men  en- 
listed in  it  and  fully  organized,  officered, 
and  equipped  for  instant  service  in  the 
field,  Germany  would  have  pondered  long 
before  starting  this  war.  Would  not  the 
German  people,  as  well  as  the  English, 
be  glad  now  if  the  war  had  never  been 
started?  But  if,  notwithstanding  all  this, 
the  war  had  been  started,  an  army  of  a 
million  brave  and  hardy  Scots  would  have 
been  on  the  firing  line  before  the  German 
columns  had  got  past  Louvain.  Belgium 
would  have  been  protected  from  devasta- 
tion. There  would  have  been  no  invasion 
of  France. 

But  the  English  people  stubbornly  re- 
fused to  heed  warnings  of  the  danger  of 
war  with  Germany. 

We  are  doing  the  same  with  reference  to 
Japan. 

The  English  with  stolid,  self-satisfied 
complacency  pinned  their  faith  entirely 
on  their  navy  as  a  national  defense. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      215 

We  are  doing  practically  the  same  thing, 
with  reference  to  Japan. 

And  now  the  English  have  been  awak- 
ened by  an  appalling  national  catastrophe 
which  was  preventable. 

Must  we  be  awakened  in  the  same  way? 

A  Scotch  Homecroft  Reserve  of  a  mil- 
lion men  would  have  been  an  almost  certain 
guarantee  that  no  war  would  have  broken 
out;  and  if  it  had,  such  a  Homecroft  Re- 
serve would  have  been  worth  to  England 
the  billions  of  dollars  she  is  now  spending 
in  a  paroxysm  of  haste  to  train  a  million 
soldiers  for  service  on  the  continent  and 
to  conduct  the  war.  The  Scotch  Home- 
croft Reserve  would  have  had  the  added 
value  of  being  thoroughly  trained  and 
hardened  troops  as  compared  with  the 
new  levies  they  are  now  training  to  be 
soldiers.  Those  raw  levies  of  volunteers, 
many  from  clerical  employments,  lack 
the  qualities  that  would  have  been  fur- 
nished by  the  Scotch  Highlanders,  or  the 
descendants  of  forty  generations  of  border- 
raiders,  or  the  hardy  fishermen  of  the  Sea 
Coast  and  Islands  of  Scotland.  Some  idea 
of  the  sort  of  men  who  would  have  com- 


216         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

posed  this  Scotch  Homecraft  Reserve 
that  England  might  have  had,  may  be 
gained  from  the  following  very  brief  story 
of  the  Gordon  Highlanders  which  appeared 
in  the  "Kansas  City  Times"  of  October 
27,  1914: 

"  Who 's  for  the  Gathering,  who 's  for  the  Fair? 

(Gay  goes  the  Gordon  to  a  fight.) 
The  bravest  of  the  brave  are  at  deadlock  there, 

(Highlanders!  March!  By  the  right!) 
There  are  bullets  by  the  hundred  buzzing  in  the  air : 

There  are  bonny  lads  lying  on  the  hillsides  bare; 
But  the  Gordons  know  what  the  Gordons  dare 

When  they  hear  their  pipes  playing. 

— '  The  Gay  Gordons/  by  Henry  Newbolt. 

"One  hundred  and  thirty  years  ago  the 
bagpipes  of  the  'Gay  Gordons'  first  swirled 
the  pibroch.  Since  then  they  have  played  it 
in  every  clime  and  nearly  every  land  where 
British  troops  have  fought. 

"The  Duke  of  Gordon  was  granted  a 
'Letter  of  Service'  in  1794  to  organize  a  High- 
land infantry  regiment  among  his  clansmen. 
Lady  Gordon,  'The  Darling  Duchess,'  took 
charge  of  the  enlisting.  Their  son,  the  Mar- 
quis of  Huntley,  was  the  first  colonel. 

"The  Gordons  first  saw  service  against  the 
French  in  Holland  in  1799.  Outnumbered 
six  to  one,  they  received  their  baptism  of  fire 
in  a  wild  charge  at  Egmont-op-Zee  that  made 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      217 

all  Great  Britain  ring  with  their  praises. 
Their  first  laurels,  won  at  a  bloody  cost,  have 
never  been  dimmed. 

"From  Holland  they  went  to  Egypt,  and 
with  the  Black  Watch,  the  Cameronians  and 
the  Perthshire  Greybreeks  stormed  up  the 
shore  of  Aboukir  Bay  and  later  the  height  of 
Mandora.  The  name  of  every  battle  of 
Napoleon's  futile  attempt  to  master  Egypt 
appears  on  their  battle  flags. 

"They  came  home  from  there  to  line  the 
streets  of  London  at  Nelson's  funeral,  a  post 
of  honor  coveted  by  every  British  regiment. 
Next  they  appeared  in  Denmark  and  were  at 
the  fall  of  Copenhagen.  Without  a  visit  to 
Scotland  the  Gordons  went  to  Spain  and  went 
through  the  glorious  campaign  of  Sir  John 
Moore.  The  French  long  remembered  them 
for  their  fight  at  Corunna. 

"When  the  British  were  retreating,  the 
Gordons  were  the  rear  guard.  At  Elvania 
Sir  John  galloped  along  their  line.  Ammuni- 
tion was  low  and  no  supplies  available. 

"'My  brave  Highlanders!  You  still  have 
your  bayonets !  Remember  Egypt ! '  the  com- 
mander shouted. 

"The  pipers  took  up  'The  Cock  o'  the 
North/  the  sobriquet  of  the  Duke  of  Gordon, 
and  routed  the  pursuing  French.  The  Gordons 
went  to  Portugal.  Almarez  is  on  their  flags. 
They  followed  the  Duke  of  Wellington  back 


218         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

into  Spain  and  were  in  the  fights  that  sent 
Joseph  Bonaparte's  army  reeling  home. 

"The  Gordons  stood  with  the  Black  Watch 
at  Quatre  Bras,  and  two  days  later  were  at 
Waterloo.  It  was  the  Duchess  of  Richmond, 
a  daughter  of  the  Duchess  of  Gordon  who  re- 
cruited the  Gordons,  who  gave  the  famous 
ball  in  Brussels  the  night  before  Waterloo. 
The  officers  of  the  Gay  Gordons  hurried  from 
that  levee,  which  Lord  Byron,  another  Gor- 
don, has  commemorated  in  a  poem,  to  the 
field  of  battle. 

"The  feat  of  the  Gordons  that  day,  in 
grabbing  the  stirrups  of  the  charging  Scots 
Greys,  is  one  of  history's  most  stirring  pages. 
It  is  a  striking  coincidence  that  in  the  present 
war,  just  ninety-nine  years  later,  the  Gordons 
swung  to  the  Greys'  stirrups  in  another  wild 
charge,  this  time  against  the  Germans. 

"The  Gordons  went  to  the  Afghan  War  in 
1878.  In  1881  they  campaigned  across  the 
veldts  against  the  Boers.  The  next  year  they 
stood  at  El-Teb  and  Tel-el-Kebir  with  their 
old  friends  the  Black  Watch.  They  marched 
to  Khartum  when  their  namesake,  Gordon, 
was  trapped.  That  over,  they  -went  back  to 
India  for  another  Afghan  war.  They  marched 
by  the  scenes  of  their  bloody  fights  when 
going  to  the  relief  of  Lucknow. 

"In  1897  the  Gordons  were  the  heroes  of 
all  Britain.  They,  and  a  regiment  of  Gurkhas, 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE 

charged  a  hill  at  Dargai  in  the  face  of  almost 
superhuman  difficulties.  Two  years  later  the 
regiment  went  to  South  Africa  and  fought 
valiantly  through  that  war.  At  Eldanslaagte 
they  were  part  of  the  column  of  General 
French,  their  present  commander. 

"The  red  uniform  coat  of  the  Gordons  is 
lavishly  trimmed  in  yellow,  which  brought 
them  the  sobriquet  of  'Gay  Gordons.'  Of 
all  the  Scotch  regiments  it  has  tried  the  hard- 
est to  keep  its  ranks  filled  with  Scotsmen, 
*  limbs  bred  in  the  purple  heather.' 

"Officially  the  Gordons  are  the  Ninety- 
second  Highland  Infantry." 

England's  original  expeditionary  force 
to  the  continent  in  1914  was  less  than 
200,000  men.  Suppose  it  had  been  1,200,- 
000.  It  might  just  as  well  have  been 
1,200,000,  if  a  Scotch  Homecroft  Reserve 
had  been  long  ago  established,  as  should 
have  been  done,  and  gradually  increased 
until  a  million  men  were  enlisted  in  it. 
Would  any  one  question  the  fact,  if  there 
had  been  another  million  men  in  England's 
expeditionary  army  when  it  was  first 
sent  to  the  continent,  that  it  would  have 
completely  changed  the  whole  current  of 
events  in  this  war?  It  would  have  checked 


220         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

the  German  advance  into  France  and  Bel- 
gium. Not  a  foot  of  Belgium's  territory 
would  have  been  wrested  from  her.  Nei- 
ther Brussels  nor  Antwerp  would  have  been 
surrendered. 

That  conclusion  is  so  self-evident  and 
conservative,  and  the  opportunity  that 
England  had  to  have  such  a  force  in  re- 
serve is  so  plain  that  it  seems  hard  to  be- 
lieve that  the  United  States  will  ignore 
its  lesson  and  fail  to  establish  a  Homecroft 
Reserve  in  this  country. 

England  had  the  original  stock  from 
which  to  breed  such  a  brave  and  hardy 
race  of  soldiers,  and  they  were  the  original 
Homecrofters.  There  were  not  a  million 
of  them,  but  there  were  many  thousands 
of  them  two  centuries  ago.  There  were  so 
many  that  to-day  there  might  easily  have 
been  a  million  such  Homecrofters  in  Eng- 
land's army  in  Europe  if  the  Homecroft 
Reserve  System  had  been  established  when 
the  trouble  first  began  between  the  Home- 
crofters and  the  Great  Landlords  who 
finally  succeeded  in  riveting  the  curse  of 
land  monopoly  around  Scotland's  neck. 

It  may  be  argued  that  this  suggestion 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE 


is  an  afterthought,  and  that,  as  the 
Arab  saying  puts  it,  "The  ditches  are 
full  of  bright  afterthoughts."  That  may 
be  true  as  to  England.  But  it  is  not  true 
as  to  the  United  States.  If  we  knew  that 
it  would  be  two  hundred  years  before  the 
great  final  struggle  would  be  fought  to 
determine  whether  the  Pacific  Coast  of 
the  United  States  should  be  dominated  by 
the  Asiatic  or  Caucasian  race,  right  now 
is  the  time  when  we  should  begin  to  breed 
and  train  our  millions  of  men  who  will 
have  to  fight  that  battle  for  us  whenever 
the  time  does  come  that  it  has  to  be  fought. 
It  is  as  inevitable  as  fate  that  the  conflict 
will  come  unless  we  safeguard  against  it 
by  peopling  America  with  a  race  as  hardy 
and  virile  as  the  races  on  the  Pacific  shores 
of  Asia  are  to-day. 

The  rugged  physical  manhood,  rough 
daring  and  bravery,  hardihood  and  en- 
durance, self-reliance  and  resourcefulness, 
readiness  for  any  emergency  on  land  or  sea, 
that  characterized  the  type  of  men  from 
whom  the  Homecroft  Reserves  would 
have  been  bred,  and  the  rough  rural 
environment  in  which  they  would  have 


OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

been  reared,  is  strikingly  described  by 
S.  R.  Crockett  in  his  novel  "The  Raiders." 

And  in  "  The  Dark  o'  the  Moon,"  the 
sequel  to  "The  Raiders,"  he  tells  of  the  first 
of  the  struggles  that  were  begun  two  cen- 
turies ago  by  the  Homecrofters  of  Scotland 
to  preserve  their  immemorial  privileges 
of  elbow-room  and  pasturage,  as  against 
the  selfishness  of  the  Landlord  System 
that  finally  prevailed.  That  system  deci- 
mated Scotland  of  her  bravest  men  and 
left  in  their  places  hunting  grounds  and 
great  estates  to  be  sold  or  rented  to 
American  Snobocrats,  who  are  not  fight- 
ing any  of  England's  battles  in  this  war. 

The  early  conflicts  between  the  Land- 
lords and  the  Homecrofters  are  referred 
to,  and  the  scene  of  one  of  these  conflicts 
is  so  interestingly  told  by  the  same  author 
in  his  Book  called  "  Raiderland,"  that  the 
following  quotation  is  made  from  it: 

"The  water-meadows,  rich  with  long  deep 
grass  that  one  could  hide  in  standing  erect, 
bog-myrtle  bushes,  hazelnuts,  and  brambles 
big  as  prize  gooseberries  and  black  as  —  well, 
as  our  mouths  when  we  had  done  eating 
them.  Woods  of  tall  Scotch  firs  stood  up 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      223 

on  one  hand,  oak  and  ash  on  the  other.  Out 
in  the  wimpling  fairway  of  the  Black  Lane, 
the  Hollan  Isle  lay  anchored.  Such  a  place 
for  nuts !  You  could  get  back-loads  and  back- 
loads  of  them  to  break  your  teeth  upon  in 
the  winter  forenights.  You  could  ferry  across 
a  raft  laden  with  them.  Also,  and  most 
likely,  you  could  fall  off  the  raft  yourself  and 
be  well-nigh  drowned.  You  might  play  hide- 
and-seek  about  the  Camp,  which  (though 
marked  *  probably  Roman*  in  the  Survey 
Map)  is  not  a  Roman  Camp  at  all,  instead 
only  the  last  fortification  of  the  Levellers  in 
Galloway  —  those  brave  but  benighted  cot- 
tiers and  crofters  who  rose  in  belated  rebellion 
because  the  lairds  shut  them  out  from  their 
poor  moorland  pasturages  and  peat-mosses. 

"Their  story  is  told  in  that  more  recent 
supplement  to  'The  Raiders'  entitled  'The 
Dark  o'  the  Moon.'  There  the  record  of 
their  deliberations  and  exploits  is  in  the  main 
truthfully  enough  given,  and  the  fact  is  un- 
doubted that  they  finished  their  course  within 
their  entrenched  camp  upon  the  Duchrae 
bank,  defying  the  king's  troops  with  their 
home-made  pikes  and  rusty  old  Covenanting 
swords. 

"There  is  a  ford  (says  this  chronicle)  over 
the  Lane  of  Grennoch,  near  where  the  clear 
brown  stream  detaches  itself  from  the  nar- 
rows of  the  loch,  and  a  full  mile  before  it 


224         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

unites  its  slow-moving  lily-fringed  stream  with 
the  Black  Water  o*  Dee  rushing  down  from 
its  granite  moorlands. 

"The  Lane  of  Grennoch  seemed  to  that 
comfortable  English  drover,  Mr.  Job  Brown, 
like  a  bit  of  Warwickshire  let  into  the  moory 
boggish  desolations  of  Galloway.  But  even  as 
he  lifted  his  eyes  from  the  lily-pools  where 
the  broad  leaves  were  already  browning  and 
turning  up  at  the  edges,  lo !  there,  above  him, 
peeping  through  the  russet  heather  of  a  Scot- 
tish October,  was  a  boulder  of  the  native  rock 
of  the  province,  lichened  and  water-worn,  of 
which  the  poet  sings : 

"  *  See  yonder  on  the  hillside  scaur, 
Up  among  the  heather  near  and  far, 
Wha  but  Granny  Granite,  auld  Granny  Granite, 
Girnin'  wi'  her  grey  teeth.' 

"If  the  traveller  will  be  at  the  pains  to  cross 
the  Lane  of  Grennoch,  or,  as  it  is  now  more 
commonly  called,  the  Duchrae  Lane,  a  couple 
of  hundred  yards  north  of  the  bridge,  he  will 
find  a  way  past  an  old  cottage,  the  embowered 
pleasure-house  of  many  a  boyish  dream,  out 
upon  the  craggy  face  of  the  Crae  Hill.  Then 
over  the  trees  and  hazel  bushes  of  the  Hollan 
Isle,  he  will  have  (like  Captain  Austin  Tre- 
dennis)  a  view  of  the  entire  defences  of  the 
Levellers  and  of  the  way  by  which  most  of 
them  escaped  across  the  fords  of  the  Dee 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      225 

Water,  before  the  final  assault  by  the  king's 
forces. 

"The  situation  was  naturally  a  strong  one 
—  that  is,  if,  as  was  at  the  time  most  likely, 
it  had  to  be  attacked  solely  by  cavalry,  or  by 
an  irregular  force  acting  without  artillery. 

"In  front  the  Grennoch  Lane,  still  and 
deep  with  a  bottom  of  treacherous  mud 
swamps,  encircled  it  to  the  north,  while  be- 
hind was  a  good  mile  of  broken  ground,  with 
frequent  marshes  and  moss-hags.  Save  where 
the  top  of  the  camp  mound  was  cleared  to 
admit  of  the  scant  brushwood  tents  of  the 
Levellers,  the  whole  position  was  further 
covered  and  defended  by  a  perfect  jungle  of 
bramble,  whin,  thorn,  sloe,  and  hazel,  through 
which  paths  had  been  opened  in  all  directions 
to  the  best  positions  of  defence." 

"Such  about  the  year  1723  was  the  place 
where  the  poor,  brave,  ignorant  cottiers  of 
Galloway  made  their  last  stand  against  the 
edict  which  (doubtless  in  the  interests  of 
social  progress  and  the  new  order  of  things) 
drove  them  from  their  hillside  holdings,  their 
trim  patches  of  cleared  land,  their  scanty 
rigs  of  corn  high  in  lirks  of  the  mountain,  or 
in  blind  'hopes'  still  more  sheltered  from  the 
blast. 

"Opposite  Glenhead,  at  the  uppermost  end 
of  the  Trod  valley,  you  can  see  when  the  sun 
is  setting  over  western  Loch  Moar  and  his 


226         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

rays  run  level  as  an  ocean  floor,  the  trace  of 
walled  enclosures,  the  outer  rings  of  farm- 
steadings,  the  dyke-ridges  that  enclosed  the 
Homecrafts,  small  as  pocket-handkerchiefs; 
and  higher  still,  ascending  the  mountain- 
side, regular  as  the  stripes  on  corduroy,  you 
can  trace  the  ancient  rigs  where  the  corn 
once  bloomed  bonny  even  in  these  wildest 
and  most  remote  recesses  of  the  hills.  All  is 
now  passed  away  and  matter  for  romance  - 
but  it  is  truth  all  the  same,  and  one  may  tell 
it  without  fear  and  without  favour. 

"From  the  Crae  Hill,  especially  if  one  con- 
tinues a  little  to  the  south  till  you  reach  the 
summit  cairn  above  the  farmhouse  of  Nether 
Crae  you  can  see  many  things.  For  one  thing 
you  are  in  the  heart  of  the  Covenant  Coun- 
try. 

"He  pointed  north  to  where  on  Auchencloy 
Moor  the  slender  shaft  of  the  Martyrs' 
Monument  gleamed  white  among  the  darker 
heather  —  south  to  where  on  Kirkconnel 
hillside  Grier  of  Lag  found  six  living  men  and 
left  six  corpses  —  west  towards  Wigton  Bay, 
where  the  tide  drowned  two  of  the  bravest  of 
womankind,  tied  like  dogs  to  a  stake  —  east 
to  the  kirkyards  of  Balmaghie  and  Cross- 
michael,  where  under  the  trees  the  martyrs 
of  Scotland  lie  thick  as  gowans  on  the  lea." 

"Save  by  general  direction  you  cannot 
take  in  all  these  by  the  seeing  of  the  eye  from 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE 


the  Crae  Hill.  But  you  are  in  the  midst  of 
them,  and  the  hollows  of  the  hills  where  the 
men  died  for  their  'thocht/  and  the  quiet 
God's  Acres  where  they  lie  buried,  are  as 
much  of  the  essence  of  Scotland  as  the  red 
flushing  of  the  heather  in  autumn  and  the 
hill  tarns  and  *Dhu  Lochs'  scattered  like 
dark  liquid  eyes  over  the  face  of  the  wilds." 

Well  may  England,  as  she  looked  over 
the  battlefields  of  Belgium,  and  mourned 
the  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of 
her  brave  men  whose  lives  have  paid  the 
forfeit  for  her  heedlessness,  and  listened 
to  the  bombardment  of  her  North  Sea 
coast  towns  by  German  battleships,  and 
scanned  the  sky  watching  for  the  coming 
of  the  aerial  invasion  her  people  so  much 
feared,  have  reflected  on  the  pathos  of 
those  lines  so  often  quoted: 

"  Of  all  sad  things  of  tongue  or  pen, 
The  saddest  are  these,  it  might  have  been." 

Shall  we  learn  by  their  experience  ,  or 
shall  we  follow  in  England's  footsteps  and 
have  the  same  sort  of  an  awakening? 

The  same  identical  influences  and  traits 
of  human  character  that  drove  the  Home- 
crofters  from  Scotland  will  be  responsible 


228         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

for  our  failure  to  take  warning  from  Eng- 
land's lesson,  if  we  do  so  fail.  It  is  the  dis- 
position of  intrenched  interests  to  grasp 
for  more  and  more,  and  constantly  more, 
that  has  imperiled  England's  national  life. 
The  same  grasping  policy  of  the  in- 
trenched interests  in  the  United  States 
now  imperils  the  national  life  of  this 
nation  in  the  future  by  the  absorption  of 
our  national  resources  and  what  remains 
of  our  public  domain  into  private  specula- 
tive ownership  while  the  toiling  millions 
are  crowded  into  the  tenements.  We  could 
survive  the  loss  of  what  the  intrenched 
interests  have  already  taken  if  they  would 
only  let  loose  on  what  is  left  and  let  Uncle 
Sam  have  a  free  hand  to  do  with  his  own 
as  is  best  for  all  his  people  in  places  like 
the  Colorado  River  country.  There  the 
greater  part  of  the  land  needed  is  still 
public  land,  and  speculators  have  not  as 
yet  acquired  the  water  rights  and  power 
possibilities. 

England  could  not  and  the  United 
States  cannot  maintain  a  great  standing 
army,  but  England  could  have  established 
and  maintained  a  Homecroft  Reserve  of  a 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      229 

million  men  in  Scotland,  and  we  can  do  it 
in  the  Colorado  River  Valley,  and  other 
places  where  it  ought  to  be  done  in  the 
United  States,  provided  the  land  and  water 
power  can  be  saved  from  the  clutch  of  the 
speculators  before  they  have  so  compli- 
cated the  proposition  as  to  interminably 
delay  it  while  Uncle  Sam  is  getting  back 
from  them  what  ought  never  to  have  been 
granted  away. 

England  had  the  Scotch  Homecrofters, 
and  drove  them  from  the  homes  of  their 
forefathers  to  make  great  estates.  We 
must  organize  our  Homecroft  Reservists 
and  locate  them  in  Homecroft  Communi- 
ties, and  train  them,  but  that  can  be  done. 

There  are  thousands  of  the  descendants 
of  the  Scotch  Homecrofters  serving  Eng- 
land to-day  in  the  Canadian  Contingent 
Corps  in  Europe,  and  doubtless  more 
than  one  of  the  crew  of  the  Australian 
Cruiser  that  sunk  the  Emden  could  trace 
his  pedigree  back  to  a  Galloway  Drover, 
a  Solway  Smuggler,  or  a  Border  Raider. 
From  the  shielings  of  the  Scotch  Home- 
crofters there  went  out  into  the  world  a 
race  that  has  made  good,  wherever  it  has 


230         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

gone.  Would  it  not  be  well  to  think  of 
that  in  the  United  States  to-day  and  breed 
some  more  of  the  same  sturdy  Homecroft 
Stock  in  this  country,  for  patriotic  service 
either  in  peace  or  war? 

It  was  the  active  out-of-door  life  that 
made  the  Scotch  Homecrofters  strong. 
It  is  the  sedentary,  indoor  life,  or  the  mo- 
notony of  factory  work,  that  is  now  sapping 
the  vitality  of  our  people  and  working 
havoc  with  our  racial  strength.  The  pity 
of  it  is  that  we  have  a  country  where  we 
can  reproduce  the  strong  races  of  many 
different  countries,  if  we  would  only  recog- 
nize that  the  necessity  for  doing  it  is  the 
biggest  and  most  important  national  prob- 
lem we  have.  We  can  match  the  country 
and  the  people  where  nearly  every  big 
thing  for  the  real  uplift  of  humanity  has 
been  done  in  recent  years. 

The  Colorado  River  Drainage  Basin 
has  many  characteristics  like  Australia, 
where  they  have  adopted  a  very  similar 
system  of  Land  Reclamation  and  Settle- 
ment and  the  plan  for  Universal  Military 
Service  that  is  advocated  in  this  book. 
We  can  duplicate  Switzerland  in  West 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      231 

Virginia.  We  can  match  Belgium  and 
Holland  in  Louisiana.  We  can  do  in 
Northern  Minnesota  what  they  have  done 
in  Denmark.  We  have  many  of  the  same 
problems  in  California  that  they  have 
solved  in  New  Zealand. 

The  fact  should  be  carefully  borne  in 
mind,  and  never  for  a  moment  lost  sight  of, 
that  everything  that  is  advocated  in  the 
plan  proposed  in  this  book  for  national 
defense  is  something  that  would  be  chosen 
as  a  thing  to  be  done  if  it  had  been  de- 
termined to  carry  out  the  most  splendid 
plan  that  could  be  devised  for  human  ad- 
vancement and  national  welfare  in  time 
of  peace  in  the  United  States.  Such  a 
plan,  having  regard  only  to  times  of  peace, 
would  embody  the  entire  plan  advocated 
in  this  book.  Even  the  military  training 
of  entire  Homecroft  communities,  so  as 
to  be  prepared  for  that  emergency  in  case 
of  war,  is  a  discipline  that  would  be  most 
beneficial  to  physical  and  mental  develop- 
ment in  time  of  peace,  without  any  re- 
gard to  its  importance  in  the  event  of 
war.  It  is  most  remarkable  that  all  this 
should  be  true,  but  the  basic  reason  for 


OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

it  is  that,  after  all,  the  highest  ultimate 
objective  of  national  existence  in  time  of 
peace  is  to  continually  lift  humanity  to 
higher  and  higher  levels  of  physical  and 
mental  development;  and  to  persevere 
until  we  attain  the  highest  possible  type 
of  rugged  physical  and  mental  strength 
in  man  and  woman.  When  war  comes, 
the  thing  most  needed  is  men  —  strong, 
vigorous,  and  hardy  men;  and  they  are  the 
ideal  at  which  all  plans  for  racial  develop- 
ment should  aim  in  time  of  peace. 

The  Homecroft  System  of  Life  and 
Education  eliminates  the  difficulties  aris- 
ing from  a  reliance  in  time  of  war  on  un- 
trained levies  in  a  country  like  ours,  where 
so  few  are  physically  fit,  without  long  train- 
ing, for  soldierly  service.  The  Home- 
crofter,  earning  his  living  by  digging  it 
from  the  ground,  is  always  strong  and 
instantly  fit  for  a  soldier's  work.  The 
Homecrofter  lives  under  conditions  where 
he  is  not  a  cog  in  a  wheel  —  not  a  part  of 
any  complicated  industrial  machine  from 
which  no  part  can  be  withdrawn  without 
derangement  of  the  whole.  He  is  an  in- 
dependent unit  in  industry,  self-sustain- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      233 

ing,  dependent  on  no  one  and  no  one 
dependent  on  him  but  his  own  family.  If 
he  is  called  away  for  military  service,  the 
family  is  able  to  conduct  and  cultivate  the 
Homecroft,  and  gets  its  living  therefrom. 
No  one  is  left  in  need,  as  would  so  often 
happen  in  other  cases,  especially  when 
State  Militia  might  be  called  into  real 
service.  The  Homecrofter  earns  his  living 
in  a  way  that  makes  it  practicable  for 
him  to  leave  his  accustomed  vocation  for  a 
month  or  two  every  year  for  a  period  of 
military  training  without  any  prejudice  or 
loss  to  him  in  that  vocation. 

The  more  these  advantages  of  the  Home- 
croft  Reserve  System  are  studied  from  a 
military  point  of  view,  the  more  their 
value  will  be  appreciated.  A  rural  nation 
like  Servia  or  Montenegro  can  be  prac- 
tically a  nation  of  soldiers.  Every  man 
of  military  age  is  always  ready  for  serv- 
ice. The  Russian  Cossack  System  ac- 
complishes the  same  result.  A  nation  of 
shopkeepers,  commercial  clerks,  and  fac- 
tory employees  cannot  be  utilized  in  that 
way  for  military  service.  The  farming 
and  rural  population  of  the  United  States 


234         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

furnishes  a  better  hope  for  a  Citizen  Sol- 
diery in  case  of  war  than  our  city  popula- 
tion, but  in  these  days  a  farm  has  come  to 
be  really  a  factory,  with  complicated  ma- 
chinery, requiring  training  to  operate  it, 
and  a  chronic  shortage  of  labor  in  busy 
seasons.  Furthermore,  rural  population  is 
as  a  rule  so  scattered  that  it  would  not  be 
possible  in  time  of  peace  to  perfect  the 
organization  and  give  the  Reservists  the 
training  necessary  to  prepare  them  for 
service  in  time  of  war  and  have  them 
always  ready  for  immediate  action. 

In  the  Homecroft  Communities  a  mil- 
lion men  may  be  almost  as  close  together 
all  the  time  as  though  they  were  in  a  Con- 
centration Camp  in  time  of  war.  The  or- 
ganization of  every  company  and  regiment 
would  be  complete,  officers  and  all,  con- 
stantly in  touch  and  working  together  to 
promote  peace  and  do  the  work  of  peace 
but  ready  to  do  the  work  of  war  at  any 
time  if  need  be.  Officers  in  the  Homecroft 
Reserve  should  be  Homecrofters,  trained 
in  all  the  military  knowledge  necessary, 
but  also  trained  as  Homecrofters  and 
getting  their  living  that  way. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      235 

It  has  often  been  said  both  of  this 
country  and  of  England  that  the  country 
must  not  be  turned  into  an  armed  camp, 
like  the  Continent  of  Europe.  The  fear 
is  well  grounded  that  if  that  were  done 
the  military  spirit  would  soon  dominate  the 
nation  and  plunge  it  into  all  the  evils  of 
Militarism,  with  the  danger  always  to  be 
feared  of  an  ultimate  military  despotism. 

The  plan  for  a  Homecroft  Reserve  en- 
tirely eliminates  that  objection.  A  great 
Homecroft  community  comprising  a  mil- 
lion acre  Homecrofts,  tilled  and  lived  on 
by  a  million  trained  Homecroft  Reservists, 
in  the  Colorado  River  Valley,  would  make 
no  militaristic  impression  on  the  charac- 
ter of  the  people  at  large  in  the  United 
States  as  a  whole.  And  the  same  state- 
ment would  hold  good,  if  another  similar 
Homecroft  Reserve  of  a  million  men  on  a 
million  acres  in  each  State  were  estab- 
lished in  the  Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin 
Valleys  in  California,  another  in  Louisi- 
ana, another  in  Minnesota,  and  another 
in  West  Virginia. 

And  yet  this  immense  Homecroft  Re- 
serve, aggregating  an  army  of  five  million 


236         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

men  in  time  of  war,  and  ready  at  any  time 
for  instant  service,  would  make  the  United 
States  the  most  potentially  powerful  mili- 
tary nation  in  the  world. 

The  lesson  of  this  last  great  war  will 
be  learned,  before  it  is  over,  by  all  the 
nations  of  the  world.  That  lesson  is  that 
men,  men  of  reckless  daring  and  dauntless 
bravery,  men  utterly  indifferent  to  their 
own  lives  when  they  can  be  sacrificed  to 
save  the  nation,  men  like  the  Belgian 
gardeners  who  have  fought  for  their  home- 
land in  this  war,  men  like  the  Japanese 
gardeners  who  threw  away  their  lives 
against  Port  Arthur,  men  like  the  Scotch 
Homecrofters  who  charged  with  the  Scots 
Greys  at  Waterloo  and  have  fought 
through  the  fierce  carnage  of  a  hun- 
dred bloody  battlefields  to  sustain  and 
build  Britain's  Empire  Power;  such  men 
as  the  Minute  Men  of  Concord  or 
the  Southern  Chevaliers  who  rode  with 
Marion;  such  men  as  those  who  fought 
with  Jackson  at  New  Orleans,  whether 
they  were  Lafitte's  smugglers  and  pirates 
from  Barataria  Bay  or  Mountaineers  from 
other  states  or  planters  from  the  great 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      237 

sugar  plantations  of  Louisiana,  men  who, 
all  of  them,  are  fighting  for  their  homes  and 
their  country,  constitute  a  defense  that  rises 
above  all  others  in  strength  and  is  the 
most  powerful  mobile  force  in  modern 
warfare.  Armed  and  equipped  and  or- 
ganized they  must  be,  and  fired  with  the 
desperate  valor  that  can  be  born  only  of 
patriotic  devotion  to  a  great  cause;  but 
when  you  have  such  men,  and  enough  of 
them,  no  modern  machinery  of  war,  or 
engines  of  destruction,  or  fortifications  can 
overcome  them  or  stand  against  them. 
They  are  a  force  as  irresistible  as  the 
eruption  of  a  mighty  volcano. 

Those  are  some  of  the  things  to  set  to 
the  credit  of  the  plan  for  a  Homecroft 
Reserve  if  needed  for  national  defense  in 
time  of  war. 

Now  measure  their  value  in  time  of 
peace,  for  national  defense  against  the 
evil  forces  that  are  gnawing  at  the  very 
vitals  of  our  national  existence  by  degen- 
erating our  racial  strength  and  physical 
and  mental  power  as  a  people. 

There  is  a  remedy  for  the  physical 
degeneracy  caused  by  congested  cities. 


238         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

That  remedy  is  that  the  populations  of 
such  cities  shall  be  scattered  into  the  sub- 
urbs where  every  family  can  have  a  home  in 
which  they  can  live  in  contact  with  nature. 
It  must  be  a  home  with  a  garden,  where 
they  can,  if  need  be,  get  their  living  from 
their  own  Homecroft.  The  Homecroft 
should  be  the  principal  source  of  livelihood 
for  every  family,  —  the  factory  employ- 
ment, or  the  wage  earned  from  it,  should 
be  secondary.  This  one  condition,  wher- 
ever it  is  brought  into  existence  for  an 
entire  community,  will  end  all  labor  con- 
flicts and  disturbances.  The  most  perni- 
cious and  poisonous  influence  in  American 
thought  to-day  starts  from  the  minds  of 
employers  of  labor  who,  sometimes  per- 
haps subconsciously,  think  they  must 
control  labor  by  having  the  working  people 
always  on  the  edge  of  the  precipice  of 
starvation.  The  idea  that  the  wage  earner 
can  only  be  controlled  by  being  kept  in  a 
position  of  personal  dependence  and  sub- 
serviency is  as  medieval,  inhuman,  and 
barbarously  wrong  as  was  the  idea  that 
human  slavery  was  necessary  for  the  con- 
trol of  labor. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      239 

We  have  achieved  religious  liberty, 
political  liberty,  civil  liberty,  and  personal 
liberty,  but  industrial  liberty  remains  yet 
to  be  accomplished.  Industrial  slavery  is 
the  corner  stone  of  our  industrial  edifice. 
It  will  continue  so  as  long  as  the  lives  of 
great  multitudes  of  wageworkers  revolve 
around  a  job,  and  they  know  no  other 
way  to  supply  human  needs  but  a  wage. 
Better  men  will  give  better  service,  and 
employers  will  get  better  results,  when 
every  wage  earner  is  located  on  a  Home- 
croft  from  which  he  can  in  any  hour  of 
need  provide  the  entire  living  for  himself 
and  family. 

That  condition  is  the  only  permanent 
remedy  for  unemployment.  When  all 
wage  earners  —  all  men  and  women  —  in 
this  country  are  trained  Homecrofters, 
able  to  build  a  house  and  furnish  it  them- 
selves by  their  own  skill  and  knowing  how 
to  get  their  living  from  one  acre,  whenever 
need  be,  the  Homecroft  life  will  be  the 
universal  life  of  the  working  people,  and 
there  will  be  no  unemployment. 

Unemployment  will  continue  so  long 
as  there  is  a  great  mass  of  floating  labor, 


240         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

living  from  day  to  day  on  a  wage  while  it 
lasts,  and  starving  when  it  stops.  No 
scheme  can  be  devised  that  will  end  the 
miseries  caused  by  unemployment,  so 
long  as  that  system  of  a  floating  mass  of 
workers  is  perpetuated.  Human  genius 
cannot  prevent  the  ebb  and  flow  of  pros- 
perity. Eras  of  depression  are  inevitable. 
When  they  come,  thousands  will  be  out 
of  employment.  Labor  Bureaus,  private 
or  public,  will  not  change  that  condition, 
because  they  cannot  create  jobs  where 
none  exist.  It  is  philanthropy  and  not 
business  for  an  employer  to  retain  men 
out  of  sympathy  for  them  when  he  does 
not  need  their  labor.  Philanthropy  is  a 
poor  foundation  on  which  to  try  to  build 
any  economic  structure.  Better  by  far 
have  every  workingman  a  Homecrofter, 
whose  labor  is  needed  on  his  homecroft, 
in  ^home-garden  or  home- workshop,  when- 
ever it  is  not  needed  in  some  wage-earning 
employment. 

The  labor  of  women  and  children  in 
factories,  aside  from  all  other  considera- 
tions, is  an  economic  waste,  from  the 
broad  standpoint  of  the  highest  welfare 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      241 

and  prosperity  for  all  the  people.  Any 
woman  who  is  a  trained  Homecrofter  is 
worth  more  in  dollars  and  cents  per  day 
or  per  week  for  what  she  can  produce  from 
that  homecroft  than  she  can  earn  in  any 
factory.  The  same  is  true  of  every  child 
old  enough  to  seek  factory  employment. 
Homecroft  women  and  Homecroft  children 
will  never  work  in  factories,  and  whenever 
their  labor  cannot  be  had  the  labor  of 
men  will  be  substituted  and  the  whole 
world  will  be  the  better  for  it  when  that 
time  comes. 

But  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  a  Home- 
croft Reserve? 

It  has  much  to  do  with  it. 

Every  community  of  Homecrofters 
created  to  enlarge  and  maintain  the 
Homecroft  Reserve,  would  be  a  training 
school  for  Homecrofters.  The  term  of 
enlistment  for  the  educational  training 
furnished  by  these  great  National  Insti- 
tutions for  the  training  of  Homecrofters 
would  be  five  years.  Each  organized 
community  would  be  practically  a  sep- 
arate Homecroft  village.  Every  one  that 
was  organized  would  make  it  easier  to 


OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

organize  the  next.  Public  interest  would 
grow  and  the  popular  demand  would  force 
the  rapid  expansion  of  the  plan  as  soon 
as  its  benefits  in  the  field  of  the  education 
of  the  people  were  realized  —  just  as  hap- 
pened in  the  case  of  the  rural  free  mail 
delivery. 

Whenever  the  nation  starts,  as  is  ad- 
vocated in  this  book,  to  immediately  es- 
tablish a  Homecroft  Reserve  of  100,000  in 
the  Colorado  River  Country  near  Yuma; 
100,000  in  the  San  Joaquin  Valley  in 
California;  100,000  in  Louisiana;  100,- 
000  in  West  Virginia;  and  100,000  in 
Minnesota,  —  500,000  in  all,  —  and  gets 
that  part  of  its  work  for  national  defense 
done,  each  100,000  will  be  rapidly  extended 
to  1,000,000.  That  will  mean  that  there 
will  be  5,000,000  enlisted  Homecroft  Re- 
servists being  trained  as  soldiers  of  peace 
as  well  as  soldiers  for  war  —  being  trained 
to  produce  food  for  man  with  a  hoe  as 
well  as  to  defend  their  country,  if  need 
arises,  with  a  gun.  Every  Homecrofter 
and  his  entire  family  will  be  students, 
learning  to  be  Homecrofters,  all  of  them, 
and  taking  a  five  years'  course.  One  fifth 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      243 

of  the  total  5,000,000  would  be  enlisted 
and  the  same  number  graduated  every 
year. 

What  would  be  the  result? 

Every  year,  year  after  year,  1,000,000 
trained,  scientific  Homecrofters  —  trained 
in  home-handicraft,  and  in  fruit-culture, 
truck-gardening,  berry-growing,  poultry- 
raising,  and  in  putting  all  their  products 
in  shape  for  marketing,  whether  in  their 
own  stomachs  or  in  the  markets  of  the 
world  —  would  be  graduated  from  these 
Homecroft  villages  comprising  the  Home- 
croft  Reserves.  Each  would  have  had  a 
five  years'  course  in  that  training  —  a  year 
longer  than  required  for  an  ordinary  col- 
lege course  and  of  infinitely  more  prac- 
tical value  to  them  than  a  college  course. 

They  would  pay  for  the  use  and  occu- 
pancy of  the  Homecroft,  and  for  the 
instruction  they  would  receive,  a  sum 
sufficient  to  cover  all  the  cost  of  providing 
the  instruction,  and  six  per  cent  on  the 
value  of  the  Homecroft,  four  per  cent  in- 
terest and  two  per  cent  to  go  to  a  sinking 
fund  that  would  equal  the  value  of  the 
Homecroft  in  fifty  years.  The  govern- 


244         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

ment  would  get  back  every  dollar  it  in- 
vested, with  interest,  and  make  the  profit 
between  the  cost  of  the  Homecroft  and 
its  fixed  ultimate  value  of  $1,000.  That 
value  would  be  from  twenty  to  thirty  per 
cent  profit  on  the  original  investment  by 
the  government. 

Every  one  of  the  1,000,000  Homecroft 
families  that  would  be  graduated  every 
year  would  go  out  into  the  great  field  of 
our  national  life  and  activity,  looking  first 
for  a  Homecroft  and  second  for  employ- 
ment in  some  industrial  vocation. 

Now  how  many  of  our  people  are  there 
who  can  be  induced  to  sit  down  and  hold 
their  heads  in  their  hands  until  they  have 
stopped  the  whirl  in  which  most  of  their 
minds  are  involved,  long  enough  to  seriously 
weigh  the  difference  in  value  to  the  country 
and  to  every  industrial  and  commercial 
interest  of  1,000,000  such  trained  home- 
crofters,  compared  with  the  1,000,000  un- 
trained and  ignorant  foreign  immigrants 
whom  we  have  been  swallowing  up  every 
year  for  so  many  years  in  the  maw  of  our 
congested  cities? 

One  million  trained  Homecrofters,  with 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      245 

their  families,  coming  each  year  into  the 
social  and  industrial  life  of  the  whole 
people,  scattering  into  every  community 
where  labor  was  needed,  would  in  a  com- 
paratively few  years  solve  every  social 
problem  and  rescue  the  nation  from  its 
danger  of  eventual  destruction  by  human 
congestion,  the  tenement  life,  and  racial 
degeneracy.  The  graduated  Homecrofters 
could  never  be  induced  to  go  into  the  con- 
gested tenement  districts.  They  would 
insist  on  living  in  Homecrofts  in  the  sub- 
urbs of  the  cities. 

The  nation  ought  to  adopt  immediately 
the  whole  system  of  establishing  Home- 
croft  communities  as  training  schools 
for  5,000,000  Homecrofters,  from  which 
1,000,000  would  be  graduated  every  year, 
without  any  regard  to  the  value  of  the 
plan  for  a  Reserve  for  national  defense. 
It  should  be  done,  if  for  nothing  else, 
to  check  the  congestion  of  humanity  in 
cities,  create  individual  industrial  inde- 
pendence, end  unemployment,  end  woman 
labor  in  factories,  end  child  labor,  and 
insure  social  stability  and  the  perpetuity 
of  the  nation. 


246         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 


THE  NEW  EMPIRE  OF  THE  WEST 

IN   THE   DRAINAGE    BASIN   OF   THE 

COLORADO  RIVER  — THE  NILE  OF  AMERICA  — 

AND  THE  INLAND  BASIN  IN  SOUTH  CALIFORNIA, 

NEVADA,  AND  UTAH 


WYO. 


C  © 


Map  showing  the  Drainage  Basin  of  the  Colorado  River 
and  the  Inland  or  Great  Basin  in  South  California,  Nevada,  and 
Utah;  also  showing  the  Corrected  Boundary  Line  and  Neutral 
Zone  between  the  United  States  and  Mexico. 

The  area  of  the  Drainage  Basin  of  the  Colorado  River  is 
244,000  square  miles.  Japan  has  an  area  of  147,655  square 
miles.  ^  That  is  a  territory  smaller  than  the  area  of  the  Colo- 
rado River  Drainage  Basin  in  Arizona  and  New  Mexico. 


CHAPTER  IX 

IN  the  Colorado  River  Valley  in  Arizona 
and  California,  and  in  the  State  of  Nevada, 
the  national  government  already  owns  large 
tracts  of  land  and  controls  the  locations  re- 
quired for  power  development.  The  work  that 
could  be  done  immediately  in  establishing 
Homecroft  Reserves  on  those  public  lands, 
would  reclaim  vast  areas  of  arid  lands  and 
develop  water  power  that  would  have  a  value 
far  beyond  the  cost  of  the  work.  The  finan- 
cial advantages  to  the  government  would  be 
strikingly  demonstrated  by  the  work  done  in 
those  places.  The  danger  of  the  occupation 
of  California,  Oregon,  and  Washington  by  a 
Japanese  invading  force,  before  we  could 
mobilize  an  army  on  the  Pacific  Coast, 
would  be  entirely  removed  at  a  large  and 
steadily  increasing  profit  to  our  government. 
That  may  seem  incredible  to  the  average 
reader  but  it  is  none  the  less  true.  Its 
truth  arises  from  the  fact  that  the  enor- 
mous values  in  productive  land  and  in 


248         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

water  power  that  can  be  created  have  as 
yet  no  existence.  They  must  be  brought 
into  existence  by  human  labor,  and  large 
initial  expenditures.  Those  expenditures 
are  too  large  to  be  possible  through  the 
investment  of  private  capital.  When 
done  by  the  national  government,  the 
profits  would  be  large  in  proportion  to  the 
large  original  investment. 

The  national  government  should,  with- 
out any  delay,  declare  its  policy  to  reserve 
to  itself  all  water  rights  and  water  power 
resources  in  the  Colorado  River  Canyon. 
It  should  reserve  for  its  own  operations  all 
public  land  in  the  main  valley  of  the  Colo- 
rado River  below  the  Canyon.  It  should 
resume  ownership  of  every  acre  of  land 
in  that  territory  that  has  been  heretofore 
located  and  is  as  yet  unreclaimed  or  un- 
settled. That  land  should  be  acquired 
under  a  system  similar  to  the  Australian 
system,  by  purchase  under  an  agreement 
as  to  price.  If  the  acquisition  of  any  of 
the  land  in  that  way  proves  impracticable, 
private  rights  in  the  land  should  be  con- 
demned exactly  as  would  private  rights  in 
land  needed  for  forts  or  fortifications. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      249 

The  rapid  development  and  settlement 
of  the  Colorado  River  Valley  along  the 
lines  herein  advocated  is  a  measure  of 
national  defense  and  urgently  so.  Every 
year's  delay  brings  the  converging  lines 
of  possible  friction  between  the  United 
States  and  Japan  closer  together.  What- 
ever system  we  may  adopt  for  national 
defense  in  that  direction  should  be  so 
quickly  adopted  that  the  safeguards  devel- 
oped by  it  will  be  of  rapid  growth.  This  is 
more  particularly  important  if  we  look  at 
the  matter  from  the  right  standpoint,  and 
appreciate  that  what  we  do  is  done  rather 
to  prevent  war  than  to  insure  victory  in 
case  of  war.  We  will  never  have  a  war 
with  Japan  unless  it  is  the  result  of  our  own 
heedless  indifference,  apathetic  neglect, 
and  inexcusable  unpreparedness. 

Immense  tracts  of  land  in  the  Colorado 
River  Valley  are  still  owned  by  the  na- 
tional government  which  are  capable  of 
reclamation.  Having  resumed  ownership 
of  all  unsettled  or  unreclaimed  lands  in 
the  valley  now  in  private  ownership,  the 
Government  should  lay  out  a  great  sys- 
tem for  the  storage  of  the  flood  waters  of 


250         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

the  Colorado  River  in  the  canyon  of  the 
river.  The  water  should  be  utilized  to 
reclaim  at  least  five  million  acres  in  Cali- 
fornia and  Arizona. 

The  works  necessary  for  the  reclama- 
tion of  at  least  a  million  acres  of  this  land 
should  be  carried  to  completion  with  all 
possible  expedition.  This  one  million  acres 
should  be  brought  to  the  highest  stage  of 
reclamation  and  cultivation,  subdivided 
into  Homecrofts  of  one  acre  each,  and  as 
rapidly  as  possible  settled  by  men  with 
families  who  either  already  know  or  are 
willing  to  learn  how  to  get  a  comfortable 
living  for  a  family  from  one  acre  of  land 
in  the  Colorado  River  Valley. 

The  Australian  system  of  land  recla- 
mation and  settlement  should  be  applied 
to  the  colonization  of  these  acre-garden 
farms  or  Homecrofts.  On  every  one  of 
them  a  house  and  outbuildings  adapted 
to  the  climate  should  be  built,  costing 
not  over  $500.  That  is  all  that  would  be 
necessary  in  the  way  of  buildings.  Shade 
rather  than  shelter  is  needed  and  it  is 
more  important  to  provide  ways  to  keep 
cool  than  ways  to  keep  out  the  cold.  Life 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      251 

is  lived  practically  out-of-doors  all  the 
year  round. 

These  Homecraft  settlements  should  be 
organized  in  communities  of  not  less  than 
one  thousand  each  and,  in  advance  of 
settlement,  schoolhouses  adapted  to  the 
climate  and  all  necessary  roads  and  trans- 
portation facilities  should  be  brought  into 
existence.  The  price  to  be  paid  for  the  right 
of  occupancy  of  each  acre  Homecroft  dur- 
ing the  five  year  period  of  enlistment  in 
the  Educational  System  of  the  Homecroft 
Reserve  Service,  should  be  based,  not  on 
the  cost,  but  on  the  full  value  of  the  re- 
claimed land  and  its  appurtenant  water 
right  plus  the  entire  investment  for  house  and 
community  improvements  and  the  overhead 
expense  of  its  development. 

No  cash  payment  should  be  required 
from  the  settler.  He  should  only  pay  the 
fixed  annual  rental  for  use  and  occupa- 
tion from  year  to  year.  The  test  of 
his  acceptability  as  an  applicant  would 
be  his  physical  fitness  for  the  labor  re- 
quired in  the  development  of  that  country, 
as  well  as  for  possible  military  service  in 
the  event  of  war.  The  most  important 


OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

question  would  be  his  ability,  with  the 
help  of  his  family,  and  with  the  instruction 
that  would  be  given  to  all,  to  so  cultivate 
and  manage  his  acre  Homecroft  as  to  pro- 
duce from  it  all  the  food  needed  by  the 
family  throughout  the  year.  The  first 
consideration  in  putting  such  a  settler  on 
the  land  would  be  the  willingness  of  him- 
self and  family  to  do  that  one  thing  above 
all  others  and  thereby  demonstrate  the 
practicability  of  the  plan. 

There  would  thus  be  brought  into  exist- 
ence something  rare  among  American 
institutions  —  an  independent  and  self- 
sustaining  community  of  a  million  men  of 
military  age  with  families  from  whom  the 
mainstay  of  every  family  would  be  avail- 
able for  military  service  without  inter- 
ference with  complex  commercial  or 
industrial  conditions,  and  without  in  the 
slightest  degree  subjecting  the  family  to 
possible  privation  from  lack  of  food,  shel- 
ter, or  raiment.  The  question  of  raiment 
in  the  Colorado  River  Valley  involves,  if 
necessity  exists  for  economy,  an  expense 
so  small  as  to  be  negligible.  If  the  men 
from  such  a  community  were  absent  for 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      253 

five  years  in  military  service,  the  sale  of 
surplus  products  and  poultry  in  excess  of 
the  family  needs  for  food,  that  could  be 
produced  from  the  acre,  would  amply 
supply  the  need  of  the  family  for  clothes, 
and  all  their  other  necessary  requirements. 

The  character  of  the  cultivation  neces- 
sary upon  such  an  acre  would  be  pecul- 
iarly adapted  to  the  labor  which  would  be 
available  from  the  old  men,  the  boys,  the 
women,  and  the  children  of  the  community. 
Each  family  would  continue  to  live  in  its 
accustomed  home  indefinitely.  If  the 
men  of  military  age  were  called  on  for 
military  service,  all  rentals  or  other  charges 
against  the  land  or  for  water  maintenance 
or  for  instruction  or  upkeep  of  roads  and 
public  works  should  be  remitted  during 
such  a  period  of  actual  service  and  borne 
by  the  national  government.  And  in  the 
event  of  the  loss  of  the  head  of  the  family 
in  the  service,  the  ownership  of  a  com- 
pletely equipped  and  stocked  homecroft 
should  vest  in  the  family  in  lieu  of  a  pen- 
sion. 

Not  only  should  the  Australian  land 
system  be  made  applicable  to  such  com- 


254         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

munities,  so  that  each  settler  could  secure 
his  home  without  the  payment  of  any  cash 
down,  or  anything  more  than  the  annual 
rental,  but  the  Australian  or  Swiss  system 
of  military  service  should  likewise  be 
adopted,  with  reference  to  all  these  com- 
munities and  the  entire  section  of  the 
country  embraced  in  the  Colorado  River 
Valley. 

The  plan  has  no  elements  of  uncertainty 
or  impracticability.  The  land  is  there 
and  the  government  already  owns  more 
than  enough  of  it  to  carry  out  the  plan 
without  the  acquisition  of  any  land  now 
in  private  ownership. 

The  water  necessary  to  reclaim  the  land 
runs  to  waste  year  after  year  into  the  Gulf 
of  California,  and  it  never  will  be  fully 
conserved  and  utilized  until  the  govern- 
ment takes  hold  and  does  it  on  a  big  inter- 
state scale  such  as  can  be  done  only  by 
the  national  government.  The  latent 
water  power  should  be  developed  as  fast 
as  needed  and  perpetually  owned  by  the 
national  government.  Every  available 
acre  of  land  that  can  be  reclaimed  in  the 
main  Colorado  River  Valley,  and  on  the 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      255 

mesas  adjoining  it,  should  be  acquired 
and  gradually  settled  under  this  plan  by 
the  national  government. 

Every  new  acre  thus  developed  and 
settled  would  add  to  the  economic  strength 
of  the  nation  as  well  as  contribute  to  its 
military  strength .  The  fact  th  at  this  whole 
section  of  the  country  can  be  so  readily 
adapted  to  the  Australian  system  of  land 
reclamation  and  settlement,  and  also  to 
the  Australian  system  of  military  service, 
is  one  of  the  strongest  reasons  for  locating 
the  first  demonstration  of  the  advantages 
of  such  communities  in  the  Colorado 
River  Valley. 

Other  reasons  exist,  however,  which 
should  not  be  lost  sight  of.  There  is  no 
other  available  section  close  enough  to 
Southern  California  where  a  force  could  be 
developed  and  maintained  that  could  be 
brought  into  action  for  the  defense  of 
Southern  California  quickly  enough  to 
make  it  safe  to  rely  upon  its  efficiency  for 
that  purpose  with  certainty.  But  an 
army  of  a  million  men  could  be  marched 
from  the  Colorado  River  Valley  to  Los 
Angeles  or  any  point  in  Southern  Cali- 


256         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

fornia  in  much  less  time  than  troops 
could  be  transported  across  the  Pacific 
Ocean. 

To  this  end- a  great  Military  Highway 
should  be  built  across  the  Imperial  Valley 
to  San  Diego  and  thence  to  Los  Angeles. 
Also  another  Military  Highway  paralleling 
the  Southern  Pacific  Railroad  from  Yuma 
to  Los  Angeles  with  established  stations 
for  water  supply  on  both  routes  at  neces- 
sary intervals.  These  highways  would  in 
time  of  peace  be  a  part  of  a  transcontinen- 
tal highway  and  would  be  constantly  used 
by  thousands  of  motor  car  travelers.  No 
system  of  railroad  or  trolley  transporta- 
tion should  be  wholly  depended  on  for  the 
transportation  of  these  troops.  It  should 
not  be  possible  to  check  their  advance  by 
any  interruption  of  traffic  resulting  from 
dynamiting  bridges  or  tunnels  or  otherwise 
retarding  or  destroying  railroad  commu- 
nication. The  assured  safety  to  Southern 
California  which  would  result  from  the 
proximity  and  readiness  of  the  Homecroft 
Reserve  would  lie  in  the  fact  that  every 
soldier  from  the  Colorado  River  Valley 
could  transport  himself  from  his  home  to 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      257 

the  point  where  he  was  needed,  and  be 
sure  that  he  would  get  there  in  time  to 
meet  any  invading  force. 

It  may  be  argued  that  a  million  men 
instantly  liable  for  military  service  to 
defend  our  Mexican  border  or  defend 
Southern  California  against  possible  in- 
vasion is  more  than  would  be  needed. 
Right  there  lies  the  incontestable  assurance 
of  Peace.  Neither  Japan  nor  any  other 
nation  would  ever  seriously  consider  un- 
dertaking to  land  an  army  anywhere  on 
the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of  California  or  the 
Pacific  Ocean  for  attack  upon  any  sec- 
tion of  the  United  States  if  a  million  sol- 
diers stood  ready  to  step  to  the  colors  and 
shoulder  their  guns  and  military  equip- 
ment and  give  their  services  wherever 
needed  to  repel  such  an  invasion. 

Every  man  living  under  this  Swiss- 
Australian  Homecroft  System  of  military 
service  would  be  hardened  and  seasoned 
for  the  duties  of  that  service.  The  activi- 
ties of  his  life  and  the  digging  of  his  living 
from  the  ground  would  render  him  fit  at 
all  times  for  the  heavy  duties  of  soldiering. 
Not  only  would  he  be  hardened  to  labor, 


258         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

but  he  would  be  inured  to  the  trying  cli- 
mate of  the  Southwest,  a  climate  so  hot 
that  people  unaccustomed  to  it  would  melt 
in  their  tracks  if  they  undertook  any  active 
physical  labor  under  its  blistering  sun. 
Those  who  live  in  the  climate,  however, 
become  readily  acclimated  to  it,  and  are 
as  satisfied  with  and  loyal  to  the  country 
as  it  is  possible  for  human  beings  to  be 
to  the  land  of  their  home. 

The  plan  of  setting  apart  and  develop- 
ing this  particular  section  of  the  country 
as  a  source  of  supply  and  place  for  the 
maintenance  of  an  adequate  citizen  sol- 
diery, would  be  strengthened  by  certain 
enlargements  of  the  plan  that  would  be 
entirely  practicable  from  every  point  of 
view. 

The  period  of  the  year  when  the  men 
could  best  be  spared  from  their  homes  for 
an  interval  of  military  training  would  be 
in  the  winter  time.  It  would  be  found 
advisable,  in  training  the  men  of  the 
Colorado  River  Valley  for  military  serv- 
ice, to  move  them  once  each  year  under 
military  discipline  to  an  encampment  for 
field  maneuvers  at  some  point  in  Nevada 


THE   PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      259 

far  enough  to  the  North  to  bring  them 
within  range  of  the  cold  winter  climate  to 
be  found  in  many  of  the  valleys  of  Nevada. 
The  best  possible  training  these  men 
could  have  would  be  to  march  them 
with  a  full  military  equipment  from  the 
Colorado  River  Valley  to  this  winter 
training  ground,  and  then  march  them 
back  again  to  their  homes,  once  every 
year.  That  would  be  physical  service  that 
would  qualify  them  for  the  hardest  kind 
of  long  distance  marching  that  they  might 
be  called  upon  to  do  in  any  event  of  actual 
warfare. 

The  stimulating  effect  of  the  cold  winter 
climate  of  Nevada  on  men  from  the  hot 
climate  of  the  Colorado  River  Valley 
would  be  of  immense  physical  advantage  to 
them,  besides  hardening  them  to  cam- 
paigning in  a  cold  country,  as  they  would 
be  hardened  already  by  their  home  en- 
vironment to  campaigning  in  a  hot  coun- 
try. A  military  road  should  be  constructed 
for  such  use  all  the  way  from  Yuma  to 
Central  Nevada,  and  then  extended  north 
to  a  point  where  it  would  connect  with  an 
east  and  west  national  highway  leading 


260         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

from  Salt  Lake  City  to  Reno,  Sacramento, 
and  San  Francisco. 

There  are  other  details  which  should  be 
worked  out  to  complete  the  comprehensive 
plan  for  the  establishment  and  mainte- 
nance of  such  an  adequate  and  efficient 
citizen  soldiery.  The  most  important  of 
these  would  be  the  establishment  of  In- 
stitutions for  Instruction  —  Homecrof t  In- 
stitutes —  which  would  train  not  only  the 
children  but  the  parents  as  well,  in  every 
community  subject  to  this  system,  in 
everything  relating  to  the  high  type  of  land 
cultivation  that  would  be  necessary  to  the 
success  of  the  plan.  Cooperative  methods 
in  the  distribution  and  sale  of  their  surplus 
products  should  also  be  adopted. 

With  careful  study  of  all  the  questions 
involved  relating  to  physical  and  mental 
stamina  and  strength  and  its  development 
in  that  climate,  a  racial  type  could  be 
developed  with  as  much  physical  endur- 
ance as  that  of  the  Mojave  Indians  who 
have  lived  for  centuries  in  that  country. 
In  the  old  days,  before  there  were  rail- 
roads or  telegraph  lines,  their  couriers 
would  run  for  sixty  miles  without  water 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      261 

over  the -desert.  They  have  powers  of  en- 
durance exceeded  probably  by  no  other 
living  race  of  men. 

The  settlements  thus  contemplated  in 
the  Colorado  River  Valley  should  be  sup- 
plemented by  the  settlement,  on  Five 
Acre  Homecrofts  in  Nevada,  of  as  large 
a  force  of  Homecrofters  as  might  be 
needed  for  the  Cavalry  Arm  of  the  entire 
Homecroft  Reserves  of  the  West  and  the 
Pacific  Coast.  This  Homecroft  Reserve 
Cavalry  force  should  be  located  under 
the  Australian  system  of  land  reclamation 
and  settlement,  and  trained  under  the 
Australian  system  of  universal  military 
service.  They  should  be  located  upon 
lands  now  owned  by  the  national  govern- 
ment or  which  could  easily  be  acquired  by 
it  in  various  communities  of  anywhere 
from  100  to  1000  each,  in  all  the  valleys 
of  the  State  of  Nevada.  That  entire 
State  has  now  a  population  of  only  81,876 
people,  according  to  the  census  of  1910, 
and  within  its  borders  there  are  from 
three  to  five  million  acres  of  unoccupied 
and  uncultivated  land,  or  land  on  which 
at  present  only  hay  or  grain  is  grown, 


262         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

which  could  be  subdivided  into  five  acre 
farms  and  settled  under  the  Australian 
land  system  by  men  with  families  who 
would  get  their  living,  each  family  from 
its  five  acres,  and  be  there  all  the  years  of 
the  future  instantly  ready  at  any  time  for 
military  service  whenever  and  wherever 
they  might  be  called  to  the  flag. 

It  would  be  a  very  easy  matter  for  the 
national  government  to  cooperate  with 
the  State  of  Nevada  in  such  a  way  that 
every  law  of  the  State  and  every  plan  for 
its  development  would  fit  in  perfectly 
with  this  adequate  and  comprehensive 
plan  for  the  establishment  of  a  great 
Reserve  Force  of  Cavalry  for  the  national 
defense.  In  Nevada,  on  the  splendid 
stock  ranges  of  that  State,  the  system 
could  be  so  developed  as  to  establish  a 
cavalry  service  large  enough  to  serve  all 
needs  for  that  arm  of  the  service,  at  least 
when  required  anywhere  in  the  Western 
half  of  the  United  States. 

The  climate  of  Nevada  and  the  stock 
ranges  of  that  State  will  produce  not  only 
a  hardy  and  vigorous  race  of  men  but  will 
produce  a  hardy  and  vigorous  race  of 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      263 

horses  as  well.  No  horses  in  the  world  are 
stronger  or  better  fitted  for  cavalry  serv- 
ice than  those  bred  in  Nevada. 

Were  this  plan  once  adopted  with  ref- 
erence to  the  State  of  Nevada,  it  would 
not  be  possible  for  the  national  govern- 
ment to  reclaim  land  and  make  it  ready 
for  settlement,  with  a  house  on  each  five 
acre  tract,  fast  enough  to  supply  the  de- 
mand for  such  homes  by  industrious  fami- 
lies who  would  enthusiastically  conform 
to  all  the  conditions  of  Reservist  service 
in  order  to  get  the  advantages  and  the 
benefits  offered  by  such  a  system  of  land 
settlement. 

Five  acres  of  irrigated  land  intensively 
tilled  will  support  a  family  anywhere  in 
Nevada,  but  supplementing  the  five  cul- 
tivated acres  in  the  majority  of  cases,  graz- 
ing privileges  could  be  made  appurtenant 
to  the  five  acre  farm  which  would  materi- 
ally increase  its  value  and  facilitate  the 
establishment  of  an  adequate  Cavalry 
Service  to  be  drawn  from  these  Nevada 
communities.  Each  community  of  Home- 
crofters  enlisted  in  this  Cavalry  Service 
should  have  set  apart  to  them  from  the 


264         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

public  lands  an  area  of  grazing  lands 
which  they  could  use  through  the  forma- 
tion of  cooperative  grazing  associations, 
such  as  have  been  so  successfully  con- 
ducted in  some  of  the  other  grazing 
States. 

In  this  connection,  it  may  be  interesting 
in  passing  to  call  attention  to  the  similarity 
which  this  system  of  a  Citizen  Cavalry 
Service  would  have  to  the  Cossack  system 
in  Russia.  The  Russian  government 
maintains  this  invaluable  cavalry  arm  of 
the  Empire's  military  power  without  other 
expense  than  to  furnish  the  arms  and  am- 
munition for  each  cavalryman,  supple- 
mented by  a  money  payment  when  in 
service  in  lieu  of  rations. 

Land  grants  have  been  made  to  the 
Cossacks,  in  return  for  which  they  must 
give  the  military  service  which  is  the  con- 
dition upon  which  the  land  grant  was  made. 
The  total  area  of  all  these  grants  is  in  the 
neighborhood  of  146,000,000  acres  and 
many  of  the  Cossack  communities  have 
been  made  wealthy  from  the  timber  and 
mines  on  their  lands.  These  Cossack 
communities  are  self-governing  political 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      265 

bodies  within  themselves,  in  all  their  local 
affairs.  Their  term  of  service  begins  with 
early  manhood  and  ends  only  when  they 
have  reached  the  age  of  sixty.  Their 
mode  of  life  gives  them  all  the  physical 
vigor  that  could  be  attained  by  constant 
service,  and  when  called  to  the  colors  in 
time  of  war,  they  regard  active  service 
as  something  to  be  much  desired  and  it 
is  entered  upon  with  enthusiasm  rather 
than  regret. 

The  same  conditions  would  hold  good 
if  a  National  Homecroft  Reserve  Cavalry 
Service  were  established  in  Nevada.  The 
farmer  could  leave  his  home  without  preju- 
dice to  his  family  and  would  welcome 
with  patriotic  enthusiasm  a  call  to  the 
colors.  At  the  same  time  his  home  life 
and  home  environment  would  be  free 
from  all  the  monotony  and  innumerable 
evils  of  life  in  a  military  barracks  or  camp 
in  time  of  peace.  It  would  have  all  the 
variety  of  an  active,  out-of-door,  free,  and 
independent  rural  life  in  one  of  the  most 
bracing  and  stimulating  climates  in  the 
world,  and  in  a  State  which,  if  it  were 
fully  developed  under  this  plan,  would 


266         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

have  a  population  of  at  least  five  million 
citizens  and  their  families,  of  the  highest 
and  most  intelligent  class  that  could  be 
produced  on  American  soil. 

This  great  Cavalry  Service  of  our 
citizen  soldiery  in  the  State  of  Nevada 
could  be  so  quickly  transported  to  and 
mobilized  at  any  point  on  the  Pacific 
Coast  between  Seattle  and  Los  Angeles, 
in  the  event  of  threatened  invasion,  that 
no  nation  could  by  any  possibility  land 
an  army  on  our  Pacific  shores  without 
being  almost  instantly  confronted  by  an 
organized  force  of  citizen  soldiers  with 
its  full  quota  of  cavalry — not  an  un- 
trained mob  of  volunteers  but  hardened 
and  trustworthy  men  of  training  and  ex- 
perience in  all  that  a  soldier  can  learn 
to  do  in  preliminary  training  without  ac- 
tual warfare. 

The  fact  that  such  an  overwhelming  and 
irresistible  force  was  known  by  all  other 
nations  to  exist  and  to  be  available  for 
immediate  mobilization  and  defense,  would 
in  and  of  itself  prove  the  best  assurance  we 
could  have  against  the  breaking  out  of  a 
war  which  otherwise  might  well  occur  be- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      267 

cause  of  our  hopelessly  inadequate  regular 
standing  army  and  our  utter  unprepared- 
ness  so  long  as  we  have  no  adequate  force 
of  citizen  soldiery. 

A  citizen  soldiery  is  what  we  must  un- 
doubtedly have  in  this  country,  but  it 
must  be  a  citizen  soldiery  trained  and 
inured  at  all  times  in  advance  to  the  real 
hardships  of  war.  They  must  have  the 
physical  stamina  necessary  to  endure  such 
hardships.  They  must  be  kept  at  all  times 
physically  fit  by  the  labor  of  their  daily 
life  and  the  occupations  whereby  they 
earn  their  bread.  They  must  be  trained 
thoroughly  and  well  in  time  of  peace,  as 
it  is  contemplated  they  shall  be  trained 
under  the  military  system  of  Switzerland 
and  Australia.  That  system  would  to  a 
large  extent  be  the  model  which  would  be 
the  guide  for  the  creation  of  the  Home- 
croft  Reserve,  except  that  under  the  latter 
system  the  regular  annual  training  period 
would  be  longer  and  the  training  more 
thorough  and  complete.  It  would  be 
sufficiently  so  to  make  a  reservist  in  every 
way  the  equal,  so  far  as  training  goes,  of  a 
soldier  in  the  regular  army. 


268         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

The  creation  of  a  great  Military  Re- 
serve under  the  plan  proposed  for  a  Home- 
croft  Reserve  in  the  Colorado  River 
Valley  for  the  national  defense  would  re- 
quire, for  its  complete  and  satisfactory 
fruition,  the  acquisition  by  the  United 
States  of  the  territory  through  which  the 
Colorado  River  now  flows  from  the  present 
boundary  line  to  the  Gulf  of  California 
and  extending  around  the  head  of  the  Gulf 
of  California. 

The  Gulf  of  California  should  be  made 
neutral  waters  forever,  by  treaty  between 
the  United  States  and  Mexico,  and  this 
treaty  should  be  agreed  to  by  all  the  na- 
tions of  the  world.  The  neutral  waters 
thus  created  should  extend  far  enough 
into  the  open  sea  so  that  all  commerce 
from  the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of  California 
or  reaching  the  markets  of  the  world 
through  that  waterway  from  any  of  the 
vast  interior  territory  embraced  in  the 
drainage  basin  of  the  Colorado  River, 
could  at  any  time  reach  the  ocean  high- 
ways of  commerce  without  danger  of 
being  waylaid  by  the  hostile  ships  of  war 
of  any  nation. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      269 

The  territory  which  the  United  States 
should  thus  acquire  from  Mexico  by  peace- 
ful agreement  and  purchase  should  include 
the  section  of  land  lying  north  of  the 
most  southerly  line  of  New  Mexico  and 
Arizona,  which  runs  through  or  very 
close  to  Douglas,  Naco,  and  Nogales,  ex- 
tended due  west  to  and  across  the  Gulf 
of  California  and  thence  to  the  Pacific 
Ocean.  The  land  lying  north  and  east  of 
this  line  and  the  Gulf  of  California  and 
Colorado  River  should  become  a  part  of 
Arizona.  The  land  lying  north  of  the 
same  line  and  extending  from  the  Colorado 
River  and  the  Gulf  of  California  on  the 
east  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  on  the  west, 
should  become  a  part  of  the  State  of  Cali- 
fornia. 

A  neutral  zone  should  be  created,  south 
of  and  parallel  to  the  boundary  line  be- 
tween the  United  States  and  Mexico,  ex- 
tending all  the  way  from  the  Pacific 
Coast  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Rio  Grande  River.  This  neutral 
zone  should  be  controlled  by  an  Inter- 
national Commission. 

That    commission    should    also     have 


270         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

jurisdiction  to  determine  any  controver- 
sies that  might  arise  with  reference  to  the 
Gulf  of  California.  They  should  have  the 
same  jurisdiction  over  that  neutral  sea 
zone  as  over  the  neutral  land  zone.  The 
jurisdiction  of  such  an  International  Com- 
mission might  well  be  extended  to  cover 
all  controversies  that  might  arise  between 
the  United  States  and  Mexico,  as  to  which 
it  might  be  given  full  powers  as  an  In- 
ternational Commission  of  Conciliation 
or  Arbitration,  whenever  such  disputed 
question  was  referred  to  it  by  the  Execu- 
tive or  Legislative  authority  of  either 
government,  and  in  all  cases  before  an 
actual  declaration  of  war  should  be  made 
by  either  country  against  the  other. 

Such  an  agreement  would  be  of  inesti- 
mable advantage  to  both  countries,  and 
would  more  than  compensate  Mexico  for 
the  transfer  to  the  United  States  of  the 
little  corner  of  land  which  should  be  a 
part  of  Arizona  and  California.  It  is  of 
no  possible  benefit  to  Mexico  to  hang  on  to 
it.  Its  acquisition  by  the  United  States 
is  vital  to  its  safe  development.  Its  owner- 
ship by  Mexico  puts  the  great  population 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      271 

that  will  eventually  live  in  the  valley  of 
the  Colorado  River  in  the  same  position 
with  reference  to  their  natural  outlet  to 
the  sea  that  the  people  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley  would  be  in,  if  some  other  nation 
owned  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi 
River,  or  that  New  York  would  occupy 
if,  for  instance,  Germany  or  France 
owned  Long  Island  and  Staten  Island  and 
the  territory  immediately  adjacent  to  the 
Narrows  and  Long  Island  Sound  on  the 
mainland. 

If  the  peace  advocates  in  the  United 
States,  who  limit  their  energies  to  the 
establishment  of  the  machinery  for  arbi- 
tration or  conciliation,  would  go  one  step 
farther  and  work  out  such  a  plan  as  that 
suggested  above  for  getting  rid  of  a  na- 
tional controversy  before  it  becomes  acute, 
they  would  render  invaluable  service  to 
their  country.  The  ownership  of  the 
delta  of  the  Colorado  River  and  the  head 
of  the  Gulf  of  California  is  one  of  those 
certain  points  of  danger  that  should  be 
removed.  The  people  of  Mexico  must 
realize  that,  and  the  creation  of  a  neutral 
zone  and  the  neutralization  of  the  Gulf  of 


OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 


California  would  be  of  infinitely  greater 
value  to  Mexico  than  the  small  tract  she 
would  transfer  to  the  United  States  could 
ever  be  under  any  circumstances.  For 
Mexico  to  continue  to  hold  it,  creates  a 
constant  danger  of  friction  or  conflict 
which  would  be  entirely  removed  if  it 
were  taken  over  by  the  United  States. 

The  situation  now  is  exactly  as  though 
one  man  owned  the  doorway  to  another 
man's  house.  He  could  make  no  real 
beneficial  use  of  it  except  to  embarrass 
the  owner  of  the  house.  Such  a  situation 
can  only  result  in  controversy.  Is  it  not 
possible  that  the  advocates  of  national 
arbitration  and  conciliation  or  of  an  In- 
ternational Court  can  be  induced  to  see 
this  and  use  their  efforts  to  accomplish 
a  great  national  benefit  that  is  entirely 
practicable?  The  plan  above  proposed 
would  have  all  the  merits  claimed  for 
International  Arbitration  and  Concilia- 
tion and  for  an  International  Peace 
Tribunal.  That  is  what  the  proposed 
International  Peace  Commission  between 
this  country  and  Mexico  would  be,  in  fact, 
and  its  value  and  success  being  demon- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      273 

strated  in  one  place  where  it  could  be 
practically  put  in  operation,  it  would  be 
much  easier  to  get  the  same  plan  adopted 
in  wider  fields  by  other  nations,  and  per- 
haps gradually  evolve  a  world-wide  sys- 
tem for  an  International  Peace  Tribunal 
that  way. 

Another  change  that  should  be  made 
in  existing  boundary  lines  to  facilitate  the 
development  of  the  resources  of  that 
country  and  its  settlement  by  a  dense 
population,  is  shown  by  the  map  on  the 
following  page.  State  lines  in  the  arid 
region  should  have  been  located,  so  far  as 
possible,  where  they  would  have  followed 
the  natural  boundaries  of  hydrographic 
basins.  When  early  errors  can  be  now 
corrected  with  advantage  to  the  people 
it  should  be  done.  The  development  of 
Northern  California  would  be  facilitated 
by  separating  it  from  Southern  California 
at  the  Tehachapi  Mountains.  Then  the 
great  problem  of  the  reclamation  and 
settlement  of  the  12,500,000  acres  in  the 
Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin  valleys 
could  be  solved  much  easier  than  as  the 
state  is  now  constituted.  It  would  also 


274 


OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      275 

be  to  the  advantage  of  Southern  Cali- 
fornia to  be  able  to  deal  with  its  vast 
problems  of  irrigation  development  with- 
out being  complicated  with  those  of 
Northern  California. 

The  accompanying  map  illustrates  the 
lines  which  should  be  the  boundary  lines 
of  the  States  of  California,  South  Cali- 
fornia and  Nevada.  The  North  and 
South  line  between  California  and  Ne- 
vada, running  from  Oregon  to  Lake 
Tahoe,  should  be  continued  south  until 
it  strikes  the  crest  of  the  Pacific  Water- 
shed; thence  it  should  follow  the  crest 
of  that  watershed  southeast,  south  and 
southwest,  until  it  joins  the  Pacific  Ocean 
between  Santa  Barbara  and  Ventura. 
The  southern  boundary  line  of  Utah 
should  be  extended  until  it  intersects  the 
line  last  described  at  the  crest  of  the 
Pacific  Watershed.  The  land  north  of 
the  line  so  extended  to  the  west  and 
draining  into  Nevada,  formerly  in  Cali- 
fornia, and  comprising  Mono  and  part 
of  Inyo  Counties  should  go  to  Nevada 
and  all  south  of  this  east  and  west  line 
should  go  to  South  California.  Nevada 


276         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

would  gain  by  the  exchange  and  so  would 
South  California.  A  glance  at  the  map 
will  satisfy  anyone  of  the  advantages  to 
all  the  sections  affected  which  would 
accrue  from  this  correction  of  present 
boundaries,  and  the  creation  of  the  new 
State  of  South  California. 


CHAPTER  X 

(CALIFORNIA  is  a  remote  Insular  Prov- 
ince of  the  United  States  —  just  as  much  an 
island  as  Hawaii,  to  all  practical  intents 
and  purposes.  It  would  be  more  easily  ac- 
cessible from  Japan  by  sea,  in  case  of  war, 
than  from  the  United  States  by  land.  It  is 
bounded  on  the  west  by  the  Pacific  Ocean, 
now  nothing  more  than  a  large  lake  in  these 
days  of  modern  steamships.  It  is  bounded 
on  the  east  and  south  by  mountain  ranges 
from  which  a  thousand  miles  of  desert  and 
the  Rocky  Mountains  intervene  before  the 
populous  sections  of  the  United  States  are 
reached.  On  the  north  inaccessible  moun- 
tains separate  California  from  the  plains  and 
valleys  of  Oregon.  There  are  hundreds  of 
places  on  its  coast  where  an  army  could  be 
landed.  To  reach  it  from  the  north,  moun- 
tains must  be  crossed.  From  the  east, 
mountains  must  be  crossed.  From  the 
south,  mountains  must  be  crossed.  From 
the  west,  the  gentle  waves  of  the  Pacific,  in 


278         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

all  ordinary  weather,  lap  the  sloping  sands 
which  for  a  thousand  miles  tempt  a  landing 
on  so  fair  a  shore. 

All  this  is  true  of  Southern  California, 
so  far  as  its  inaccessibility  from  the  east 
is  concerned,  but  it  is  more  essentially 
true  of  the  Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin 
Valley.  There  you  have  a  great  bowl, 
fashioned  by  Nature  in  such  a  way  as  to 
open  invitingly  to  the  warm  and  equable 
winds  that  come  from  the  Pacific  and 
the  Japan  current,  while  on  the  north, 
west,  and  south  are  high  mountain  ranges 
that  protect  from  the  blizzards  that  come 
out  of  the  north  or  the  hot  desert  blasts 
from  the  south. 

This  peculiar  conformation  of  the  great 
central  valley  of  California  makes  its 
defense  in  case  of  war  with  any  maritime 
nation  a  most  difficult  problem. 

The  idea  that  the  Pacific  Coast  of  the 
United  States  or  the  coast  of  California 
can  be  protected  by  a  navy  seems  so  ut- 
terly without  foundation  that  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  treat  it  seriously.  Do  those  who 
delude  themselves  with  that  mistaken 
dream  recall  that  Cervera  steamed  in 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      279 

from  the  sea  and  slipped  into  Santiago 
Harbor  when  practically  the  whole  Amer- 
ican Navy  was  searching  and  watching  for 
him? 

If  England  cannot  protect  two  hundred 
miles  of  seacoast  from  the  raids  of  German 
battleships,  can  we  protect  two  thousand 
miles?  Does  anyone  doubt  that  if  Ger- 
many had  been  so  disposed,  and  her 
battleships  had  been  convoying  fast  trans- 
ports laden  with  soldiers,  she  easily  could 
have  landed  them  at  Scarborough  or 
anywhere  along  that  part  of  the  English 
Coast?  Does  anyone  doubt  that  Japan 
could  do  the  same  thing  anywhere  along 
the  Pacific  Coast,  particularly  when  the 
fact  is  borne  in  mind  that  in  the  summer, 
often  for  weeks  at  a  time,  the  Pacific 
Coast  is  enveloped  in  dense  fogs  that  are 
almost  continuous? 

Does  anyone  question  that  the  instant 
war  was  declared  Japan  would  seize  Alaska 
and  the  Philippines  and  the  Hawaiian 
Islands,  and  cut  off  all  possibility  of  our 
navy  operating  anywhere  except  close  to 
our  few  coaling  stations  on  the  mainland? 
If  so,  they  should  surely  read  "The  Valor 


280         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

of  Ignorance''  by  Homer  Lea,  not  for  the 
author's  opinions,  but  just  to  get  the  cold 
hard  facts  which  our  national  heedlessness 
makes  it  so  difficult  to  get  the  people  of 
this  country  to  realize0 

In  "The  Valor  of  Ignorance"  the  fact  is 
pointed  out  with  the  most  specific  detail 
that  the  number  of  transports  Japan  had, 
when  that  book  was  published  — 1909 
—  was  a  transport  fleet  of  95  steamers  with 
a  troop  capacity  of  199,526  as  against  ten 
American  transports.  The  author  makes 
this  further  comment: 

"Should  Japan  embark  on  these  two  fleets 
an  average  of  two  Japanese  to  the  space  and 
tonnage  ordinarily  deemed  necessary  for  one 
American,  then  the  troop  capacity  on  a  single 
voyage  of  these  fleets  would  exceed  three 
hundred  thousand  officers  and  men  together 
with  their  equipment  and  supplies.  That  this 
would  be  easily  possible  and  would  work  no 
hardship  on  the  men  was  demonstrated  by 
the  Japanese  winter  quarters  in  Manchuria 
during  the  Russian  War." 

Is  there  anyone  so  blind  as  to  believe 
that  if  such  an  army  of  invasion  were 
started  from  Japan,  convoyed  by  the 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      281 

Japanese  navy,  that  we  could  find  and 
destroy  that  entire  navy  and  then  find  and 
destroy  ninety -five  transports  before  they 
could  land  their  soldiers  on  the  beaches 
along  the  peaceful  shores  of  California, 
Oregon,  and  Washington?  The  greater 
part  of  every  year  they  are  peaceful 
shores.  That  is  why  the  name  Pacific 
was  chosen  for  that  great  ocean. 

The  unique  feature  about  this  whole 
subject  is  that  while  the  American  people 
are  utterly  indifferent,  Japan,  in  an  in- 
credibly short  space  of  time,  has  equipped 
herself  with  everything  needful  for  such 
an  invasion,  —  Navy,  Transports,  and 
Soldiers,  probably  the  most  perfectly  or- 
ganized army  in  the  world. 

That  is  the  situation  of  California  from 
the  side  of  the  Pacific  Ocean.  What  is  it 
from  the  land  side? 

If  Japan  contemplated  an  invasion  of 
our  territory,  how  many  are  there  who 
realize  that  just  five  dynamite  bombs 
exploded  in  the  right  places  would  block 
a  tunnel  on  every  one  of  the  railroads  lead- 
ing into  the  Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin 
Valley? 


282         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

The  California  and  Oregon  from  the 
north. 

The  Southern  Pacific  from  the  south. 

The  Atchison,  Topeka  and  Santa  Fe, 
the  Central  Pacific  and  the  Western 
Pacific  from  the  east. 

Blow  up  one  tunnel  on  each  line  and  do 
the  job  thoroughly  and  well  as  the  Jap- 
anese would  do  it,  —  that 's  the  Japanese 
way,  —  and  it  would  be  weeks  and  per- 
haps months  before  one  single  train  could 
be  got  in  or  out  of  California. 

We  may  rest  assured  also  that  the 
Japanese,  when  they  undertook  that  job, 
would  not  stop  with  blowing  up  one  tunnel. 
They  would  blow  up  a  dozen  on  every  one 
of  the  railroads  mentioned,  and  bridges 
and  culverts  and  trestles.  With  a  little 
dynamite,  mixed  with  the  reckless  daring 
of  the  Japanese,  California  could  be  made 
inaccessible  to  an  army  from  the  east, 
except  by  sea,  for  a  longer  time  than  it 
would  take  to  transport  an  army  from 
Asia  to  America. 

No  doubt  the  idea  will  occur  to  some 
that  soldiers  could  be  transported  from 
the  Atlantic  Coast  to  California  through 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      283 

the  Panama  Canal  in  time  to  meet  such 
an  emergency.  But  what  would  we  trans- 
port them  in?  We  have  no  ships.  And  it 
is  no  sure  thing  that  the  Japanese  would 
not  get  the  Panama  Canal  blown  up  and 
stop  that  channel  of  transportation,  if 
war  was  begun  between  them  and  the 
United  States.  It  would  require  nothing 
more  desperate  to  accomplish  it  than  we 
know  the  Japanese  are  ready  for  at  any 
time  the  opportunity  offered  —  nothing 
more  desperate  than  Hobson's  feat  at 
Santiago. 

The  Japanese  are  a  farsighted  people 
and  war  with  them  is  an  exact  science. 
They  master  every  detail  in  advance. 
They  proved  that  in  their  war  with  Russia. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  —  not  because 
they  have  any  hostile  intentions  towards 
the  United  States,  but  merely  because  it 
is  a  part  of  the  duty  of  their  professional 
military  scientists  —  that  the  plans  are 
now  made  in  the  war  office  at  Tokio,  for 
every  detail  of  the  whole  project  outlined 
above  for  dynamiting  every  railroad  into 
California  and  blowing  up  the  Panama 
Canal,  in  the  event  of  war  between  the 


284         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

United  States  and  Japan.  And  it  is  quite 
probable  that  the  men  are  detailed  for  the 
job  and  the  dynamite  carefully  stored 
away  with  which  to  do  it,  in  case  the 
necessity  arose  for  it. 

The  Japanese  do  not  want  a  war  with  the 
United  States. 

Neither  did  they  want  a  war  with  Russia. 
But  it  is  a  part  of  their  religion  to  be  pre- 
pared for  war.  It  is  the  thorough  Japanese 
way.  Their  way  is  not  our  way.  They  take 
no  chances.  We  do  nothing  else  but  take 
chances.  Because  what  we  are  doing  or 
have  done  for  national  defense  is  as  nothing. 

All  we  spend  on  our  navy  is  wasted,  so 
far  as  any  possible  trouble  with  Japan  is 
concerned.  If  war  came,  it  would  come 
like  the  eruption  of  Mont  Pelee,  so  unex- 
pectedly and  quickly  that  escape  was  im- 
possible. The  people  of  the  United  States, 
if  we  have  a  war  with  Japan,  will  awaken 
some  morning  and  read  in  all  their  morn- 
ing papers  that  the  Panama  Canal  has  been 
blown  up,  and  that  tunnels  on  all  the  rail- 
roads into  California  and  the  Colorado 
River  Bridges  at  Yuma  and  Needles  have 
been  blown  up;  that  the  50,000  or  more 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      285 

Japanese  soldiers  in  California  have  mo- 
bilized and  intrenched  themselves  in  im- 
pregnable positions  in  the  mountains  of  the 
coast  range  near  the  ocean;  that  Japanese 
steamers  have  landed  10,000  more  Japa- 
nese soldiers  to  reenf orce  the  50,000  already 
in  California;  that  those  same  steamers 
have  brought  arms,  ammunition,  field  ar- 
tillery, aeroplanes,  and  a  complete  equip- 
ment for  a  field  campaign  by  this  Japanese 
army  of  60,000  men;  that  those  Japanese 
steamers  have  landed  at  some  entirely  un- 
fortified roadstead  in  California:  Bodega 
Bay  or  Tomales  Bay  or  Purissima  or  Pes- 
cadero  or  Santa  Cruz  or  Monterey  or  Port 
Harford  or  any  one  of  a  dozen  other  places 
where  they  could  land  between  San  Diego 
and  Point  Arena. 

The  Japanese  making  this  landing 
would  within  two  days  make  a  junction 
with  the  Japanese  already  in  California. 
Then  an  army  of  occupation  of  60,000 
veteran  soldiers  is  in  military  control  of 
the  Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin  Valley. 

How  surprised  the  good  people  would  be 
who  have  been  so  anxious  to  get  enough  of 
the  "inferior  people"  who  are  willing  to  do 


286         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

"squat  labor"  for  the  American  owners  of 
the  country  9  which  had  just  been  taken 
away  from  them  by  the  Japanese.  Does  it 
make  any  American  proud  to  contem- 
plate that  the  whole  situation  above  out- 
lined is  not  only  possible  but  that  it  is  the 
exact  thing  that  would  happen  if  we  had  a 
war  with  Japan? 

Soldiers  for  defense?  We  could  not  get 
them  there  in  time,  and  we  cannot  main- 
tain a  soldier  in  idleness  in  a  barracks  in 
California  for  every  Japanese  who  is  in- 
dustriously earning  his  living  in  a  potato 
field,  doing  "squat  labor"  and  thinking 
the  while  that  he  wishes  his  country  would 
make  it  possible,  as  she  could  so  easily 
do,  for  him  to  own  a  potato  patch  himself. 
Let  no  one  imagine  he  is  not  thinking  about 
it.  The  Japanese  are  a  farsighted  and 
subtle  people,  with  brains  four  thousand 
years  old. 

And  with  this  army  of  occupation  of 
60,000  Japanese  veterans  in  possession 
of  the  great  central  valley  of  California, 
what  would  the  Japanese  do  with  our 
coast  fortifications  and  the  big  guns  that 
cost  so  much  money  and  were  designed 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      287 

to  riddle  Japanese  battleships  miles  at 
sea? 

Why,  the  Japanese  would  just  laugh  at 
them.  They  would  not  be  worth  taking. 
If  they  thought  they  were  they  would 
take  them,  just  as  they  took  Port  Arthur 
and  Tsing  Tao.  But  they  would  not  try 
to  do  that  until  they  had  landed  a  couple 
of  hundred  thousand  more  veteran  Japa- 
nese troops  on  the  Pacific  Coast.  Then 
they  would  take  our  coast  fortifications 
from  the  land  side  not  so  much  by  storm 
as  by  swarm. 

What  would  the  California  Militia  be 
doing  all  this  time? 

It  is  better  not  to  dwell  on  unpleasant  sub- 
jects. 

Most  probably  they  would  be  defend- 
ing San  Francisco  or  Sacramento  from  in- 
vasion while  the  Japs  were  intrenching 
themselves  in  the  appropriate  places  to 
control  every  pass  across  the  Siskiyous  or 
the  Sierras  or  the  Tehachapi  Mountains, 
making  it  impossible  to  get  across  those 
mountains  with  an  army,  even  though 
the  army  could  first  be  got  across  the 
deserts  to  the  mountains. 


288         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

In  winter  the  Siskiyous  and  the  Sierras 
would  be  made  impassible  by  Nature's 
snow  and  ice  and  avalanches,  without  any 
other  defenses  being  built  by  the  Japanese. 

But  one  of  the  first  things  the  Japanese 
would  do  would  be  to  organize  a  force 
of  aeroplane  scouts  with  bombs  to  swoop 
out  and  down  from  their  mountain  aeries 
and  dynamite  culverts  and  bridges  on 
every  railroad  approaching  the  Sacramento 
and  San  Joaquin  Valley.  They  could 
make  it  impossible  to  keep  open  railroad 
communication  in  any  way  other  than  by 
an  adequate  force  to  repel  an  aeroplane 
attack  stationed  at  every  bridge  and  cul- 
vert across  a  thousand  miles  of  desert. 
Once  the  bridges  across  the  Colorado 
River  at  the  Needles  and  Yuma  were 
blown  up,  the  Southern  Pacific  and  Santa 
Fe  would  be  out  of  commission  for  months. 

What  it  would  mean  to  get  an  army 
across  the  mountains  into  the  great 
central  valley  of  California  cannot  be 
appreciated  by  anyone  who  is  unfamiliar 
with  the  stupendous  canyons  and  chasms 
and  the  towering  peaks  of  the  Siskiyou 
and  Sierra  Nevada  Mountains.  Those 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      289 

who  toiled  over  them  with  the  Dormer 
party  could  have  told  the  tale  to  those 
who  calculate  on  scaling  those  mountains 
with  an  army  in  the  face  of  Japanese 
batteries  defending  every  pass.  It  would 
be  a  task  greater  than  the  capture  of 
Port  Arthur  to  capture  one  pass  and  get 
it  away  from  the  Japanese  after  we  had 
got  into  motion  and  started  in  with  the 
job  of  reconquering  California. 

The  difficulty  of  getting  an  American 
army  into  Southern  California  after  the 
Japanese  had  once  occupied  it,  is  de- 
scribed by  Homer  Lea  in  "The  Valor  of 
Ignorance"  in  the  following  warning 
words : 

"Entrance  into  southern  California  is 
gained  by  three  passes  —  the  San  Jacinto, 
Cajon  and  Saugus,  while  access  to  the  San 
Joaquin  Valley  and  central  California  is  by 
the  Tehachapi.  It  is  in  control  of  these  passes 
that  determines  Japanese  supremacy  on  the 
southern  flank  of  the  Pacific  coast,  and  it  is 
in  their  adaptability  to  defence  that  de- 
termines the  true  strategic  value  of  southern 
California  to  the  Japanese. 

"Los  Angeles  forms  the  main  centre  of  these 
three  passes,  and  lies  within  three  hours  by 


290         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

rail  of  each  of  them,  while  San  Bernardino, 
forming  the  immediate  base  of  forces  defend- 
ing Cajon  and  San  Jacinto  passes,  is  within 
one  hour  by  rail  of  both  passes. 

"The  mountain-chains  encompassing  the 
inhabited  regions  of  southern  California  might 
be  compared  to  a  great  wall  thousands  of  feet 
in  height,  within  whose  enclosures  are  those 
fertile  regions  which  have  made  the  name  of 
this  state  synonymous  with  all  that  is  abun- 
dant in  nature.  These  mountains,  rugged  and 
inaccessible  to  armies  from  the  desert  side, 
form  an  impregnable  barrier  except  by  the 
three  gateways  mentioned. 

"Standing  upon  Mt.  San  Gorgonio  or  San 
Antonio  one  can  look  westward  and  south- 
ward down  upon  an  endless  succession  of  cul- 
tivated fields,  towns  and  hamlets,  orchards, 
vineyards  and  orange  groves;  upon  wealth 
amounting  to  hundreds  of  millions;  upon  as 
fair  and  luxuriant  a  region  as  is  ever  given 
man  to  contemplate;  a  region  wherein  shall 
be  based  the  Japanese  forces  defending  these 
passes.  To  the  north  and  east  across  the 
top  of  this  mountain-wall  are  forests,  in- 
numerable streams,  and  abundance  of  forage. 
But  suddenly  at  the  outward  rim  all  vege- 
tation ceases;  there  is  a  drop  —  the  desert 
begins. 

"The  Mojave  is  not  a  desert  in  the  ordinary 
sense  of  the  word,  but  a  region  with  all  the 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE 

characteristics  of  other  lands,  only  here 
Nature  is  dead  or  in  the  last  struggle  against 
death.  Its  hills  are  volcanic  scoria  and  cin- 
ders, its  plains  bleak  with  red  dust;  its  mead- 
ows covered  with  a  desiccated  and  seared 
vegetation;  its  springs,  sweet  with  arsenic, 
are  rimmed,  not  by  verdure,  but  with  the 
bones  of  beast  and  man.  Its  gaunt  forests  of 
yucca  bristle  and  twist  in  its  winds  and 
brazen  gloom.  Its  mountains,  abrupt  and 
bare  as  sun-dried  skulls,  are  broken  with 
canons  that  are  furnaces  and  gorges  that  are 
catacombs.  Man  has  taken  cognizance  of 
this  deadness  in  his  nomenclature.  There  are 
Coffin  Mountains,  Funeral  Ranges,  Death 
Valleys,  Dead  Men's  Canons,  dead  beds  of 
lava,  dead  lakes,  and  dead  seas.  All  here  is 
dead.  This  is  the  ossuary  of  Nature;  yet 
American  armies  must  traverse  it  and  be 
based  upon  it  whenever  they  undertake  to 
regain  southern  California.  To  attack  these 
fortified  places  from  the  desert  side  is  a  mili- 
tary undertaking  pregnant  with  greater  dif- 
ficulties than  any  ever  attempted  in  all  the 
wars  of  the  world." 

Now  after  so  easily  taking  California 
away  from  us  because  we  stolidly  refused, 
like  the  English  people,  to  heed  repeated 
warnings,  what  would  the  Japanese  do? 
Southern  California  they  would  simply 


292         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

occupy  with  a  military  force  and  continue 
to  occupy  and  tax  it.  Its  irrigable  lands 
in  the  coast  basin  are  already  all  reclaimed 
and  densely  populated. 

The  Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin  Valley 
would  be  the  paradise  that  they  would 
develop  into  a  new  Japan. 

Already  we  have  shown  how  they  could 
duplicate  the  12,500,000  acres  of  irrigated 
and  cultivated  land  in  Japan  in  the  Inland 
Basin  and  the  Colorado  River  Country. 

They  could  do  it  again  in  the  Sacra- 
mento and  San  Joaquin  Valley  in  Cali- 
fornia. There  are  12,500,000  acres  of 
the  richest  land  in  the  world  in  that 
valley  and  within  two  years  after  they 
had  taken  possession  of  it  they  would  have 
several  million  Japanese  reclaiming  and 
cultivating  it.  They  would  bring  their 
people  over  as  fast  as  all  the  steamers  of 
Japan  could  carry  them.  And  long  before 
we  had  got  real  good  and  ready  to  recon- 
quer California  they  would  have  peopled 
its  great  central  valley  with  a  dense  Jap- 
anese population  who  would  fight  us,  the 
original  owners  of  the  country,  to  defend 
their  homes  from  invasion. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      293 

What  should  the  United  States  do  to  pre- 
vent all  this? 

It  should  immediately,  with  just  the 
same  energy  and  expedition  that  it  would 
act  if  an  invading  Armada  had  actually 
sailed  from  Japan,  buy  100,000  acres  of 
land  in  the  San  Joaquin  Valley  that  can 
be  irrigated  from  the  Calaveras  River  and 
from  the  Calaveras  Reservoir  if  it  were 
built.  It  should  subdivide  that  tract  into 
one  acre  Homecrofts  and  put  100,000 
Homecroft  Reservists  on  it.  It  should  go 
to  work  and  build,  right  now  and  without 
any  dilly-dallying  or  delay,  the  Calaveras 
Reservoir.  Those  100,000  Homecroft  Res- 
ervists should  be  set  to  work  to  build  the 
Calaveras  Reservoir  and  the  irrigation 
system  necessary  to  irrigate  that  particu- 
lar Homecroft  Reserve  tract,  and  all  the 
works  necessary  to  protect  the  entire  delta 
of  the  San  Joaquin  River  from  over- 
flow and  protect  the  channel  of  the  river 
and  broaden  the  Sacramento  River  below 
Stockton —  "open  the  neck  of  the  bottle" 
as  they  say  in  that  locality. 

The  government  should  go  over  onto  the 
west  side  of  the  Sacramento  Valley  and 


294         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

buy  another  100,000  acres,  and  subdivide 
it  into  one  acre  Homecrofts  and  enlist  an- 
other corps  of  100,000  Homecraft  Res- 
ervists and  put  them  on  that  land.  Then 
it  should  set  them  to  work  to  build  a 
great  wasteway,  to  temporarily  carry  off 
the  flood  waters  of  the  Sacramento  River 
—  one  that  will  not  split  the  Sacramento 
River  but  that  will  safeguard  Sacramento 
from  that  catastrophe.  That  work  should 
be  continued  until  it  is  finished. 

Another  100,000  acres  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Fresno  should  be  likewise  bought 
and  another  100,000  Homecroft  Reserv- 
ists enlisted  and  located  on  it.  They 
should  be  set  to  work  to  open  a  navi- 
gable waterway  to  Fresno  and  dig  a  great 
drainage  canal  that  would  also  be  a  navi- 
gable canal,  from  Suisun  Bay  to  Tulare 
Lake. 

Another  100,000  acres  in  the  upper  end 
of  the  west  side  of  the  Sacramento  Valley 
should  be  acquired  and  settled  with  100,000 
Homecrofters  who  would  work  on  the  con- 
struction of  the  Iron  Canyon  Reservoir 
and  other  reservoirs  on  the  Sacramento 
River  and  its  tributaries,  and  on  a  great 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      295 

main  line  West  Side  Canal  from  the  Sacra- 
mento River  to  the  Straits  of  Carquinez. 

Another  100,000  acres  on  the  west  side 
of  the  San  Joaquin  Valley  should  be  ac- 
quired and  settled  with  100,000  Home- 
crofters  who  would  work  on  the  construc- 
tion of  the  lower  section  of  the  West  Side 
Canal  from  the  Straits  of  Carquinez  to  the 
lower  end  of  the  San  Joaquin  Valley. 

The  government  should  not  stop  there. 
It  should,  as  soon  as  the  necessary  legis- 
lative machinery  can  be  evolved,  go  into 
the  extreme  southern  end  of  the  San  Joa- 
quin Valley  and  acquire  500,000  acres  of 
land  for  a  Homecroft  Reserve  of  500,000 
families.  It  should  build  the  works  neces- 
sary to  bring  the  water  to  irrigate  this 
land  from  the  Sacramento  River  by  the 
great  main-line  canal  from  the  river  to  the 
straits  of  Carquinez.  Those  straits  should 
be  crossed  on  a  viaduct  and  the  canal 
carried  on  down  the  west  side  of  the  valley, 
starting  at  an  elevation  high  enough  to 
cover  the  land  to  be  irrigated  in  the  lower 
valley.  The  increased  value  of  the  mil- 
lion acres  would  cover  the  entire  cost  of 
the  works.  Additional  revenue  could  be 


296         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

earned  by  the  furnishing  of  water  to  other 
lands  under  the  canal  in  the  Sacramento 
and  also  in  the  San  Joaquin  Valley. 

The  cooperation  of  the  State  of  Cali- 
fornia would  be  gladly  extended  and  com- 
plete plans  carried  out  for  the  reclamation 
of  the  San  Joaquin  Valley  by  a  great 
canal  on  the  east  side  of  the  valley  heading 
in  the  Sacramento  River  near  Redding,  or 
at  the  Iron  Canyon,  and  extending  to  the 
extreme  southern  end  of  the  valley,  as 
recommended  by  the  Commission  ap- 
pointed by  General  Grant  when  President 
of  the  United  States.  That  Commission 
was  composed  of  General  Alexander, 
Colonel  Mendel,  and  Professor  Davidson, 
three  of  the  most  eminent  engineers  and 
scientists  of  those  days. 

An  aggregate  area  of  12,500,000  acres 
would,  as  the  result  of  this  policy,  be  re- 
claimed and  settled  in  the  Sacramento 
and  San  Joaquin  Valley.  Having  created 
a  dense  population  ourselves  in  that  coun- 
try there  would  be  no  unoccupied  land  to 
tempt  the  Japanese.  And  with  1,000,000 
Homecroft  Reservists  ready  at  any  time 
to  meet  and  repel  an  invasion,  our  occu- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      297 

pancy  of  the  country  would  be  assured 
forever. 

There  would  not  be  room  left  for  many 
Japanese  immigrants,  and  if  some  of  them 
did  come  they  would  be  in  such  a  hopeless 
minority  that  no  danger  would  result  from 
their  being  here.  No  condition  could  then 
be  imagined  in  the  future  that  would  create 
a  possibility  of  Japan,  even  with  all  the 
countless  millions  of  China  combined  with 
her,  being  able  to  land  on  the  Pacific  Coast 
an  army  large  enough  to  stand  a  moment 
against  a  Homecroft  Reserve  of  a  million 
soldiers  from  the  Colorado  River  Valley 
and  another  million  from  the  Sacramento 
and  San  Joaquin  Valley. 

Whether  it  would  be  advisable  to  estab- 
lish other  Homecroft  Reserves  in  Oregon 
and  Washington  would  depend  largely 
on  the  attitude  of  mind  of  the  people  of 
those  States.  If  a  few  connecting  rail- 
road lines  were  built,  troops  could  be 
transported  by  railroads  running  north 
across  Southern  California  and  Nevada  to 
a  connection  with  the  railroads  running 
down  the  Columbia  River  to  Portland. 
These  railroads  would  all  be  east  of  the 


298         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

mountains  until  they  connected  with  the 
Columbia  River  Railroad  and  would  be 
free  from  danger  of  being  destroyed  by 
the  blowing  up  of  tunnels. 

Of  course  it  is  a  remote  contingency 
that  such  a  thing  should  ever  become 
necessary,  but  if  it  ever  did,  the  Canadian 
border  could  be  defended  with  troops 
brought  north  through  Nevada  and  Utah 
from  the  Colorado  River  Valley  to  great 
concentration  camps  at  Chehalis  and 
Spokane,  in  Washington,  Havre  in  Mon- 
tana, and  Williston  in  North  Dakota. 
As  a  matter  of  military  precaution,  the 
necessary  connecting  links  should  be  built 
as  military  railroads,  if  nothing  else,  — 
such  links  as  from  Yuma  to  Cadiz,  Pioche 
to  Ely,  Tonopah  to  Austin,  Indian  Springs 
to  Eureka,  and  from  Battle  Mountain  or 
Winnemucca  as  well  as  from  Cobre  on  the 
Central  Pacific  line  north  to  a  connection 
with  the  Oregon  Short  Line.  The  ease 
with  which  these  connections  could  be 
made,  and  the  facility,  in  that  event, 
with  which  troops  from  the  Colorado 
River  Valley  could  be  transported  to  any 
point  in  North  Dakota,  Montana,  Idaho, 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      299 


Map  showing  Routes  of  Railway  Transportation  to  Con- 
centration Centers  for  Troops  of  the  Reserves  for  the  defense 
of  the  North  Pacific  Coast  and  Northern  Boundary  of  the 
United  States:  1,  Albany;  2,  Chehalis;  3,  Spokane;  4,  Havre; 
5,  Williston. 


300         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

Washington,  or  Oregon,  as  well  as  their 
proximity  when  at  home  in  the  Colorado 
Valley,  to  any  point  where  they  might  be 
needed  along  the  Mexican  border  or  in 
Southern  California,  emphasizes  the  ad- 
vantages of  the  Colorado  River  Valley  as 
a  location  for  the  first  great  Homecroft 
Reserve  force  of  1,000,000  men,  supple- 
mented by  another  force  of  an  equal  num- 
ber of  men  in  the  Sacramento  and  San 
Joaquin  Valley  in  California.  Once  that 
were  done,  the  question  of  the  defense  of 
the  Pacific  Coast  would  be  settled  for  all 
time,  so  long  as  this  Homecroft  Reserve 
force  was  maintained  and  kept  always  in 
readiness  for  immediate  service. 


CHAPTER  XI 

1  HE  most  dangerous  aspect  of  the  awaken- 
ing of  the  people  of  the  United  States  to  a 
realization  of  their  unpreparedness  for  war, 
and  the  appalling  national  disasters  that 
might  ensue  from  it,  is  the  danger  of  creating 
a  military  caste  which  would  gradually 
absorb  to  itself  an  undue  control  of  Gov- 
ernmental authority  and  power,  leading  in 
the  end  to  a  military  despotism. 

Already  the  danger  of  this  is  seen  in  the 
assumption  of  the  arbitrary  power  over  in- 
land waterway  development  now  exercised 
by  the  corps  of  Army  engineers  and  the 
Board  of  Army  engineers,  and  the  strong 
opposition  emanating  from  them  against  the 
adoption  of  any  improved  system  of  river 
control  that  would  protect  the  people  from 
such  appalling  disasters  as  those  which 
overtook  the  Mississippi  Valley  in  1912  and 
again  in  1913. 

It  is  a  fact  capable  of  absolute  demon- 
stration that  a  large  portion  of  the  damage 


302        OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

resulting  from  those  floods  was  due  to 
the  stubborn  refusal  of  the  Army  engineers 
to  approve  or  adopt  any  plan  for  flood  con- 
trol that  would  supplement  the  levee  sys- 
tem by  source  stream  control  of  the  floods 
on  the  upper  tributaries,  and  by  controlled 
outlets  and  spillways  and  auxiliary  flood 
water  channels  in  the  lower  valley.  It  is 
very '  doubtful  whether  the  people  of  the 
delta  of  the  Mississippi  River  will  ever 
succeed  in  getting  protection  against  the 
recurrence  of  devastating  floods  until  this 
baleful  influence  of  the  Army  engineers 
can  be  eliminated. 

There  are  several  reasons  why  this 
military  control  of  inland  waterways  is 
detrimental  to  the  country.  The  military 
caste  in  the  United  States  has  developed 
remarkable  capacity  for  turning  to  their 
own  advantage  the  influence  which  their 
control  over  appropriations  for  river  and 
harbor  improvements  has  centered  in 
them.  The  Army  engineers  are  wedded 
to  the  present  piecemeal  system  of  appro- 
priations, popularly  known  as  the  "Pork 
Barrel"  System.  The  reason  for  this  is 
that  it  practically  vests  in  them  the  auto- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      303 

cratic  authority  to  determine  whether  the 
demands  of  the  constituents  of  any  Senator 
or  Congressman  for  some  local  river  or 
harbor  improvement  shall  or  shall  not 
be  granted.  The  representatives  of  the 
people,  whether  they  be  Congressmen  or 
Senators,  must  humbly  bow  to  a  higher 
power  and  secure  its  gracious  grant  of 
consent  or  face  the  disappointment  of 
their  constituents.  It  ought  not  to  be 
difficult  for  anyone  with  common  sense, 
and  with  the  most  superficial  knowledge 
of  the  manipulation  of  social  and  political 
influences  in  shaping  legislation  to  under- 
stand the  evils  of  this  system,  or  the  in- 
fluence exerted  through  it  by  the  military 
caste  which  is  adverse  to  the  best  interest 
of  the  people  at  large. 

The  "Pork  Barrel"  System,  with  its 
piecemeal  appropriations  for  local  im- 
provements, without  any  underlying  com- 
prehensive plan,  as  long  as  it  prevails, 
will  block  the  way  to  all  efficient  waterway 
development,  or  protection  from  periodical 
damage  by  devastating  floods.  And  it 
will  never  be  changed  until  popular  in- 
dignation and  protest  breaks  the  strangle- 


304         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

hold  that  the  military  caste  now  has  upon 
this  class  of  legislation  in  Congress. 

Their  attitude  in  this  whole  field  of 
public  development  is  in  humiliating  con- 
trast with  that  of  the  Samurai  of  Japan 
when  the  entire  system  of  government  of 
that  nation  was  reconstructed  and  reor- 
ganized. The  Samurai,  actuated  by  a 
patriotic  and  self-sacrificing  desire  to  pro- 
mote the  general  welfare,  surrendered  en- 
tirely the  privileges  and  prerogatives  that 
they  held  as  a  military  class,  and  accepted 
a  system  which  took  from  them  all  power 
and  submerged  them  in  the  mass  of  the 
people. 

The  military  caste  of  this  country  ap- 
parently think  only  of  their  own  aggran- 
dizement, and  persistently  oppose  any 
modifications  of  an  evil  system  which 
would  in  the  slightest  degree  involve  a 
surrender  of  their  autocratic  authority  or 
official  prestige  and  power  for  the  gen- 
eral welfare. 

In  this  stupendous  field  of  national 
development,  where  immediate  progress  is 
so  vital  to  the  people  of  the  entire  country, 
the  stubborn  opposition  of  the  military 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      305 

caste  is  the  most  serious  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  a  complete  coordination  of  all 
the  departments  of  the  government  in  the 
solution  of  the  whole  problem  of  river 
regulation  and  flood  control  and  the  up- 
building of  a  great  inland  waterway  sys- 
tem. 

Aside  from  that,  there  is  an  additional 
reason  why  the  present  system  can  never 
be  relied  upon  for  a  complete  solution  of 
the  problem  of  river  regulation.  This 
further  difficulty  lies  in  the  system  under 
which  the  military  caste  is  organized. 
The  military  system  which  prevails  in  all 
matters  administered  through  the  Army, 
strangles  all  individual  initiative  and 
opinion.  It  automatically  subordinates 
every  engineer  in  the  military  service  to 
the  mental  and  personal  domination  of  the 
chief  of  the  Army  engineers,  whoever  he 
may  be.  All  original  and  creative  en- 
gineering genius  is  muzzled  or  chloro- 
formed as  soon  as  it  is  born.  If  by  any 
Caesarian  operation  it  chances  to  come 
into  being  it  is  promptly  strangled. 

Another  incurable  defect  in  the  military 
system  when  applied  to  civil  construction 


306         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

and  internal  development  of  the  resources 
of  the  country,  lies  in  the  transfer  of  en- 
gineers from  one  assignment  of  duty  to 
another  after  brief  periods  of  service. 
This  plan  is  no  doubt  advisable  and  possi- 
bly necessary  in  the  military  service.  Its 
tendency  is  to  bring  all  Army  engineers 
up  to  a  common  general  level  of  ability 
and  experience.  It  destroys  the  pecul- 
iar originality  and  genius  which  can  only 
result  from  long  experience  and  training 
in  one  of  the  many  special  fields  for  which 
engineers  must  be  developed  in  civil  life. 

This  Army  system  might  not  work  so 
badly  if  applied  only  to  harbors  and 
harbor  improvement  work,  but  it  destroys 
efficiency  when  applied  to  such  problems 
as  those  presented  by  a  great  river  sys- 
tem like  the  Mississippi  River  and  its 
tributaries.  An  army  engineer  in  charge  of 
the  Lower  Mississippi  River  district  may 
have  learned  something  of  that  problem, 
but  by  the  time  he  has  learned  it  he  is 
transferred  to  some  other  part  of  the 
country  and  given  a  different  problem  to 
study.  Another  engineer  is  put  in  his 
place,  and  by  the  time  he  in  his  turn  has 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OP  PEACE      307 

partially  familiarized  himself  with  the 
problem  he  is  likewise  transferred.  And 
so  it  goes  on,  ignorance  succeeds  ignorance 
as  fast  as  knowledge  can  be  obtained. 

A  martinet  at  the  head  of  the  Army 
Engineering  corps  can  stifle  and  render 
useless  to  the  country  the  most  brilliant 
engineering  genius  if  it  blossoms  forth 
with  any  new  theory  or  original  sugges- 
tion. The  Army  engineer  corps  is  bound 
hand  and  foot  by  prejudice  and  pride  of 
caste.  The  engineering  corps  is  a  unit, 
arbitrarily  dominated,  intellectually  and 
professionally,  by  the  chief  of  the  corps. 
Nothing  original  can  develop  under  such 
an  atmosphere  of  mental  repression.  The 
best  engineering  talent  in  the  world  is 
suppressed  and  rendered  valueless  by 
that  system  of  organization.  It  can  never 
solve  the  intricate  and  novel  hydraulic 
problems  presented  by  the  Mississippi 
River  which,  with  all  its  tributaries,  must 
be  treated  as  a  unit  in  order  to  control 
its  floods. 

The  people  of  the  lower  Mississippi 
Valley  have  for  years  endeavored  to  secure 
the  construction  of  controlled  outlets  and 


308         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

spillways,  but  their  most  urgent  efforts 
have  fallen  dead  at  the  door  of  the  Army 
engineers  or  their  associates  or  subordi- 
nates. The  contractors  profit  financially 
by  the  "Levees  Only"  system.  The  poli- 
ticians share  the  power  developed  by  the 
local  political  machines  which  control  the 
huge  expenditures  for  levee  construction 
and  maintenance.  Both  are  ardent  advo- 
cates and  devotees  of  the  military  caste 
system  which  perpetuates  their  powers, 
privileges,  and  prerogatives.  The  rest  of 
the  people,  wherever  they  dare  to  enter- 
tain an  independent  opinion,  recognize 
that  the  Mississippi  Valley  can  never  be 
rightly  developed  so  long  as  the  pres- 
ent "Levees  Only"  system  continues  to 
prevail. 

An  engineering  service  composed  en- 
tirely of  engineers  in  civil  life  should  be 
created  to  take  over  all  the  work  relating 
to  river  regulation,  flood  control,  and  in- 
land waterway  construction,  operation,  and 
maintenance.  The  opposition  to  such  a 
system  for  the  administration  of  civil 
affairs  by  civil  officials,  instead  of  by  the 
Army,  has  been  based  upon  the  plea  that 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      309 

nobody  but  army  officers  can  be  trusted 
to  be  honest  in  the  expenditure  of  the 
funds  of  the  national  government.  Such 
an  opposition  is  an  insult  to  the  civil  en- 
gineering profession  of  the  United  States 
and  is  completely  refuted  by  the  splen- 
did constructive  accomplishments  of  the 
United  States  Reclamation  Service.  No 
one  questions  the  personal  honesty  of  the 
Army  engineers,  but  their  methods  are 
enormously  wasteful  and  without  results 
anywhere  near  commensurate  to  the 
amount  of  their  expenditures.  The  system 
championed  and  supported  by  them  has 
resulted  in  the  waste  of  about  $200,000,- 
000.  That  vast  sum,  if  it  had  been  wisely 
and  economically  expended,  would  have 
gone  a  long  way  towards  creating  condi- 
tions on  our  river  systems  in  which  the 
water  that  now  runs  to  waste  in  devas- 
tating floods  would  have  been  put  into  the 
river  at  the  low  water  season  to  float  boats 
on  that  would  carry  our  inland  commerce. 

There  never  can  be  any  escape  from 
this  carnival  of  waste  and  extravagance 
and  impotent  and  useless  expenditure  until 
the  whole  system  of  river  control  and  im- 


310        OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

provement  is  changed.  Control  of  it 
must  be  taken  away  from  the  Army  and 
vested  in  civil  control.  Another  reason 
for  divorcing  the  Army  entirely  from  con- 
trol of  river  work  is  that  it  seems  impossible 
for  an  Army  engineer  to  recognize  or 
reason  back  to  original  causes.  He  can 
see  in  a  flood  only  something  against  which 
he  must  build  a  fortification  after  the  flood 
has  been  formed.  This  is  well  illustrated 
by  the  blind  adherence  of  the  Army  engi- 
neers, or  at  least  of  their  chiefs,  to  the 
delusion  that  floods  of  the  lower  Missis- 
sippi Valley  can  be  safeguarded  against 
by  the  "Levees  Only"  system  of  flood  pro- 
tection in  that  valley.  They  utterly  ignore 
the  cause  of  the  floods  and  therefore  refuse 
to  consider  any  system  of  source  stream 
control  or  of  controlled  outlets,  spillways, 
and  wasteways. 

Another  illustration  of  this  persistent 
adherence  to  mere  local  protection,  in- 
stead of  safeguarding  against  an  original 
cause,  is  furnished  by  the  work  of  the 
Army  engineers  in  building  the  Stockton 
cut-off  canal  in  California.  This  canal 
was  built  ostensibly  to  prevent  the  Stock- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      311 

ton  channel  from  being  filled  with  sedi- 
ment to  the  detriment  of  navigation.  In 
fact  it  was  built  to  protect  the  city  of 
Stockton  from  overflow  and  flood  damage. 

The  first  big  flood  that  came  filled  up 
the  cut-off  canal  and  it  is  now  useless.  It 
would  be  clearly  unavailing  to  reexcavate 
it,  because  it  would  fill  up  again  with  the 
next  big  flood.  The  sediment  which  filled 
the  canal  was  gathered  by  the  river  after 
it  left  the  foothills  and  tore  its  way  as  a 
raging  torrent  through  farms  and  fertile 
fields.  It  washed  or  caved  them  into  the 
river  and  carried  down  and  deposited  the 
earth  material  in  the  cut-off  canal. 

The  Army  engineers,  however,  or  at 
least  their  chiefs,  had  steadfastly  set  their 
faces  against  reservoir  construction  for 
flood  control.  But  for  this  they  might 
have  built  the  great  Calaveras  Reservoir 
which  would  have  afforded  complete  pro- 
tection for  the  city  of  Stockton  against 
floods.  By  controlling  the  flood  at  its 
source,  storing  the  flood  waters,  and  letting 
them  into  the  river  below  only  in  a  volume 
not  larger  than  the  channel  would  carry, 
all  damage  to  the  valley  and  to  farms 


312         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

lying  between  the  foothills  and  the  city 
of  Stockton  would  have  been  avoided.  No 
sediment  would  have  been  carried  into 
the  Stockton  channel  to  impede  naviga- 
tion. The  surplus  flood  water  instead  of 
running  to  waste  would  have  been  con- 
served and  held  back  until  needed  for 
beneficial  use. 

Any  such  plan  as  this  would  have  been 
contrary  to  all  the  precedents  and  theories 
of  the  military  engineers.  All  the  dam- 
ages resulting  from  failure  to  adopt  it 
merely  illustrate  the  necessity  of  escap- 
ing from  those  precedents  and  theories, 
and  the  pride  of  opinion  which  clings  to 
them  with  such  desperate  tenacity.  That 
escape  must  be  accomplished,  if  we  are 
ever  to  get  river  regulation  and  flood  pro- 
tection in  this  country.  Stockton  will 
never  get  it  until  the  Calaveras  Reser- 
voir has  been  built,  and  no  flood-menaced 
section  of  the  country  will  get  protection 
until  it  is  afforded  to  it  by  engineering 
and  constructive  forces  dominated  by  the 
civil  and  not  by  the  military  authority  of 
the  Government. 

The  whole  training  of  an  Army  engineer 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      313 

is  wrong,  when  it  comes  to  dealing  with 
river  problems  and  the  control  of  floods 
which  can  only  be  safeguarded  against 
by  controlling  the  remote  causes  which 
result  in  the  formation  of  the  flood.  The 
idea  of  preventing  the  formation  of  floods 
by  controlling  those  original  causes,  pre- 
serving forest  and  woodland  cover,  pre- 
serving the  porosity  of  the  soil,  slowing 
up  the  run-off  from  the  watershed,  or 
holding  back  the  flood  waters  in  reservoirs 
or  storage  basins,  seems  to  be  beyond  the 
scope  of  the  powers  of  conception  and  con- 
struction of  the  military  engineers  of  the 
United  States  Army.  They  see  only  re- 
sults, and  seem  unable  to  comprehend 
original  causes.  Not  only  this,  but  they 
also  oppose,  by  all  the  political  arts  in 
which  the  Army  engineers  are  so  well 
versed,  every  proposition  to  coordinate 
the  work  of  the  Army  engineers  in  the 
field  of  channel  work  and  local  flood  de- 
fense, with  the  work  of  other  departments 
of  the  national  government.  Every  de- 
partment of  the  national  government  must 
be  coordinated  which  deals  with  water  con- 
trol, or  with  any  beneficial  use  of  water 


314         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

that  would  check  rapid  run  off  and  hold 
back  the  flood  water  on  the  watershed 
where  it  originated,  and  in  that  way  pre- 
vent the  formation  of  a  destructive  flood. 

The  entire  willingness  of  the  Army 
engineers  to  subordinate  the  welfare  of 
the  people  in  every  flood-menaced  valley 
to  the  stubborn  determination  of  the 
military  caste  to  retain  and  broaden  their 
own  powers  and  privileges  in  this  one 
field  of  action,  shows  what  might  be  ex- 
pected from  any  increase  in  the  mem- 
bers of  that  caste,  or  any  enlargement  of 
their  control  over  the  civil  affairs  of  the 
country. 

The  military  caste  in  the  United  States 
will  never  approve  any  plan  for  national 
defense  that  does  not  center  in  and  radiate 
from  them.  They  will  oppose  it  unless  it 
broadens  their  influence  and  power,  and 
imbeds  it  more  strongly  in  the  foundations 
of  the  Government.  A  plan  such  as  is 
advocated  in  this  book,  will  never  have 
their  cooperation,  support,  or  endorse- 
ment, for  the  very  simple  reason  that  its 
primary  object  would  be  to  remove  the 
original  cause  of  war  and  to  contribute 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      315 

to  the  lessening  of  the  power  and  prestige 
of  the  Army.  The  fact  that  it  would  at 
the  same  time  supply  the  first  and  greatest 
need  in  the  event  of  war  —  the  need  for 
toughened  and  trained  men  who  could 
and  would  fight  and  dig  trenches  as 
well  as  seasoned  soldiers  —  would  gain  no 
favor  for  the  plan  in  the  eyes  of  our  mili- 
tary caste.  The  development  of  that 
system  and  the  expenditures  to  be  made 
for  that  purpose  and  the  control  of  the 
men  enlisted  in  it,  in  time  of  peace,  would 
not  be  vested  in  the  War  Department. 

The  military  caste  in  this  and  every 
country  is  trained  to  regard  its  profession 
as  one  whose  duty  it  is  to  accomplish 
results  by  brute  force  and  human  slaugh- 
ter. Its  only  conception  of  a  soldier 
is  a  man-killing  machine,  whose  chief  use 
in  time  of  peace  is  to  serve  as  a  basis  for 
appropriations  to  sustain  a  military  es- 
tablishment with  all  its  multitudinous 
expenditures.  Their  conception  of  war  is 
that  it  is  an  inevitable  orgy  of  human 
slaughter,  against  which  humanity  is 
powerless  to  protect  itself. 

That  a  great  force  should  be  organized 


316         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

for  patriotic  service  under  civil  control  in- 
stead of  military  domination,  to  battle 
against  the  destroying  forces  of  Nature, 
and  subjugate  and  control  them  for  the 
advancement  of  humanity  and  all  the 
arts  and  victories  of  peace,  runs  counter 
to  every  fiber  of  being  of  the  military 
caste.  And  yet,  none  but  the  most  super- 
ficial student  of  history  and  humanity 
can  fail  to  realize  the  necessity  for  such 
an  army  of  peace  in  this  country.  It  is 
certainly  true  that  wars  will  never  cease 
until  the  inspiration  and  patriotism  and 
national  ideals  developed  by  such  a  peace- 
ful conquest  of  the  forces  of  Nature  has 
been  substituted  for  the  tremendous  stim- 
ulus which  the  human  race  has  in  the 
past  drawn  from  armed  conflicts  between 
nations.  And  the  fact  must  be  clearly 
recognized  that  in  this  way  a  force  can  be 
provided  that  will  be  instantly  available 
to  take  the  place  of  seasoned  soldiers  at 
any  moment  in  the  event  that  this  nation 
should  be  drawn  into  a  war  of  defense  or 
for  the  maintenance  of  any  great  principle 
of  human  rights  or  justice  to  humanity. 
We  might  be  forced  into  a  war  within  a 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      317 

year  and  we  might  succeed  in  preserving 
the  peace  forever.  No  man  can  tell, 
because  no  human  mind  can  forecast  the 
future  or  predict  what  events  may  occur 
that  may  be  beyond  our  power  to  con- 
trol, and  which  might  force  us  into  a  war. 
We  do  know,  however,  that  the  fight 
against  the  floods  of  the  Mississippi  River, 
and  the  fight  against  the  great  storms 
from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  must  go  on  year 
after  year  through  all  the  centuries  to  come 
during  which  man  continues  to  inhabit 
the  Delta  of  the  Mississippi  River. 

The  memory  of  the  great  disaster  to 
the  city  of  Galveston,  and  the  memory 
of  the  great  floods  of  the  Mississippi  River 
in  1912  and  1913,  are  still  fresh  in  the 
minds  of  the  people.  The  defense  of  that 
part  of  our  common  country  against  such 
catastrophes  in  the  future  is  worthy  of 
the  same  patriotic  energy  and  the  same 
adequate  expenditure  that  would  be  nec- 
essary to  defend  them  against  an  armed 
invasion  from  Mexico  or  by  any  nation  of 
the  world. 

Were  such  defense  afforded,  results 
would  be  obtained  of  such  enormous 


318         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

benefit  to  the  United  States  in  time  of 
peace,  without  any  regard  to  its  relation 
to  national  defense  in  time  of  war,  that  to 
fail  to  do  it  would  be  as  stupid  as  it  would 
have  been  to  have  failed  to  take  the  gold 
from  the  placer  mines  of  California. 

The  gateway  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico 
to  the  great  central  valley  of  this  coun- 
try opens  into  a  region  so  vast  that  the 
area  comprised  within  the  watershed  of 
the  Mississippi  and  its  tributaries  em- 
braces 41  per  cent  of  the  entire  United 
States.  This  gateway  opens  into  a  great 
waterway  system  capable  of  being  made 
continuously  navigable  all  the  year  around 
through  20,000  miles  of  navigable  water- 
ways and  commerce-carriers. 

The  gateway  from  the  Gulf  opens  to  a 
country  of  greater  potential  agricultural 
wealth  than  any  other  section  of  the  earth's 
surface  of  the  same  area.  The  lower 
Mississippi  Valley  has  well  been  styled 
the  "Sugar-Bowl"  of  the  continent.  The 
State  of  Louisiana  alone  is  larger  in  area 
by  10,000  square  miles  than  the  combined 
area  of  Belgium,  Holland,  and  Denmark, 
It  is  capable  of  sustaining  a  larger  popu- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      319 

lation  and  producing  vastly  more  wealth 
than  those  three  countries  combined. 

If  you  draw  a  line  straight  north  from 
the  southernmost  point  of  Texas  to  the 
northern  line  of  Oklahoma,  and  then 
turn  and  go  straight  east,  projecting  the 
northern  line  of  Oklahoma  past  Cairo, 
Illinois,  to  the  Tennessee  River,  following 
up  the  Tennessee  River  to  the  northeast 
corner  of  Mississippi,  and  then  follow  the 
eastern  boundary  line  of  Mississippi  to 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  you  have  included 
within  those  extreme  boundaries  a  terri- 
tory as  large  as  the  whole  German  Em- 
pire. It  is  a  territory  possessing  greater 
natural  wealth  and  possibility  of  develop- 
ment than  the  German  Empire,  provided 
the  great  problems  of  water  control  and 
river  regulation  are  solved  in  such  a  way 
as  to  promote  the  highest  development 
of  this  region  for  the  benefit  of  humanity, 
and  provided  further  that  the  Coast  region 
of  this  territory  is  protected  not  only 
from  the  floods  of  the  river,  but  from  the 
storms  originating  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 
Protection  from  those  storms  requires  the 
construction  of  a  great  dike  similar  to 


320         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

the  dikes  of  Holland  that  will  hold  out 
the  waters  of  the  Gulf  not  only  at  their 
normal  height,  but  will  also  hold  them 
back  when  they  attain  the  abnormal 
height  which  at  rare  intervals  results  from 
the  hurricanes  or  great  storms  from  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico,  such  as  that  which  over- 
whelmed Galveston. 

Lafcadio  Hearn,  in  "Chita,"  has  de- 
scribed a  Gulf  Storm  better  than  it  will 
ever  again  be  described.  He  prefaced  the 
story  of  that  storm  with  a  picture  of 
the  havoc  wrought  by  Nature's  forces  — 
the  ceaseless  charging  of  the  "Ocean's 
Cavalry,"  which  is  quoted  because  it  so 
clearly  portrays  the  necessity  for  bulwarks 
of  defense  built  in  the  spirit  with  which 
military  fortifications  are  built: 

"On  the  Gulf  side  of  these  islands  you  may 
observe  that  the  trees  —  when  there  are  any 
trees  —  all  bend  away  from  the  sea;  and, 
even  of  bright,  hot  days  when  the  wind  sleeps, 
there  is  something  grotesquely  pathetic  in 
their  look  of  agonized  terror.  A  group  of  oaks 
at  Grande  Isle  I  remember  as  especially 
suggestive:  five  sloping  silhouettes  in  line 
against  the  horizon,  like  fleeing  women  with 
streaming  garments  and  wind-blown  hair  — 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      321 

bowing  grievously  and  thrusting  out  arms 
desperately  northward  as  to  save  themselves 
from  falling.  And  they  are  being  pursued 
indeed;  —  for  the  sea  is  devouring  the  land. 
Many  and  many  a  mile  of  ground  has  yielded 
to  the  tireless  charging  of  Ocean's  cavalry; 
far  out  you  can  see,  through  a  good  glass,  the 
porpoises  at  play  where  of  old  the  sugarcane 
shook  out  its  million  bannerets;  and  shark- 
fins  now  seam  deep  water  above  a  site  where 
pigeons  used  to  coo.  Men  build  dikes;  but 
the  besieging  tides  bring  up  their  battering- 
rams  —  whole  forests  of  drift  —  huge  trunks 
of  water-oak  and  weighty  cypress.  Forever 
the  yellow  Mississippi  strives  to  build;  for- 
ever the  sea  struggles  to  destroy;  —  and  amid 
their  eternal  strife  the  islands  and  the  promon- 
tories change  shape,  more  slowly,  but  not 
less  fantastically,  than  the  clouds  of  heaven. 

"And  worthy  of  study  are  those  wan 
battle-grounds  where  the  woods  made  their 
last  brave  stand  against  the  irresistible  in- 
vasion, —  usually  at  some  long  point  of  sea- 
marsh,  widely  fringed  with  billowing  sand. 
Just  where  the  waves  curl  beyond  such  a 
point  you  may  discern  a  multitude  of  black- 
ened, snaggy  shapes  protruding  above  the 
water,  —  some  high  enough  to  resemble  ruined 
chimneys,  others  bearing  a  startling  likeness 
to  enormous  skeleton-feet  and  skeleton- 
hands,  —  with  crustaceous  white  growths 


322          OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

clinging  to  them  here  and  there  like  remnants 
of  integument.  These  are  bodies  and  limbs 
of  drowned  oaks,  —  so  long  drowned  that  the 
shell-scurf  is  inch-thick  upon  parts  of  them. 
Farther  in  upon  the  beach  immense  trunks 
lie  overthrown.  Some  look  like  vast  broken 
columns;  some  suggest  colossal  torsos  im- 
bedded, and  seem  to  reach  out  mutilated 
stumps  in  despair  from  their  deepening  graves; 
—  and  beside  these  are  others  which  have  kept 
then*  feet  with  astounding  obstinacy,  although 
the  barbarian  tides  have  been  charging  them 
for  twenty  years,  and  gradually  torn  away 
the  soil  above  and  beneath  their  roots.  The 
sand  around,  —  soft  beneath  and  thinly 
crusted  upon  the  surface,  —  is  everywhere 
pierced  with  holes  made  by  a  beautifully 
mottled  and  semi-diaphanous  crab,  with 
hairy  legs,  big  staring  eyes,  and  milk-white 
claws;  —  while  in  the  green  sedges  beyond 
there  is  a  perpetual  rustling,  as  of  some  strong 
wind  bearing  among  reeds :  a  marvellous  creep- 
ing of  *  fiddlers,'  which  the  inexperienced 
visitor  might  at  first  mistake  for  so  many 
peculiar  beetles,  as  they  run  about  sideways, 
each  with  his  huge  single  claw  folded  upon  his 
body  like  a  wing-case.  Year  by  year  that 
rustling  strip  of  green  land  grows  narrower; 
the  sand  spreads  and  sinks,  shuddering  and 
wrinkling  like  a  living  brown  skin;  and  the 
last  standing  corpses  of  the  oaks,  ever  clinging 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      323 

with  naked,  dead  feet  to  the  sliding  beach 
lean  more  and  more  out  of  the  perpendicular. 
As  the  sands  subside,  the  stumps  appear  to 
creep;  their  intertwisted  masses  of  snakish 
roots  seem  to  crawl,  to  writhe,  —  like  the 
reaching  arms  of  cephalopods.  .  .  .  Grand 
Terre  is  going:  the  sea  mines  her  fort,  and  will 
before  many  years  carry  the  ramparts  by 
storm.  Grande  Isle  is  going,  —  slowly  but 
surely:  the  Gulf  has  eaten  three  miles  into 
her  meadowed  land.  Last  Island  has  gone! 
How  it  went  I  first  heard  from  the  lips  of  a 
veteran  pilot,  while  we  sat  one  evening  to- 
gether on  the  trunk  of  a  drifted  cypress  which 
some  high  tide  had  pressed  deeply  into  the 
Grande  Isle  beach.  The  day  had  been  tropi- 
cally warm;  we  had  sought  the  shore  for  a 
breath  of  living  air.  Sunset  came,  and  with 
it  the  ponderous  heat  lifted,  —  a  sudden 
breeze  blew,  —  lightnings  flickered  in  the 
darkening  horizon,  —  wind  and  water  began 
to  strive  together,  —  and  soon  all  the  low 
coast  boomed.  Then  my  companion  began 
his  story;  perhaps  the  coming  of  the  storm 
inspired  him  to  speak!  And  as  I  listened  to 
huii,  listening  also  to  the  clamoring  of  the 
coast,  there  flashed  back  to  me  recollection 
of  a  singular  Breton  fancy:  that  the  Voice  of 
the  Sea  is  never  one  voice,  but  a  tumult  of 
many  voices  —  voices  of  drowned  men,  — 
the  muttering  of  multitudinous  dead,  —  the 


324         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

moaning  of  innumerable  ghosts,  all  rising,  to 
rage  against  the  living,  at  the  great  Witch- 
call  of  storms.  .  .  ." 

The  defense  of  the  Gulf  Gateway  of  the 
United  States  of  America  not  only  against 
Nature's  forces,  whether  coming  in  the 
form  of  an  invasion  by  a  mighty  flood 
from  the  North,  or  the  invasion  of  a  great 
destroying  storm  wave  from  the  South, 
must  be  accomplished  by  the  adoption  of 
a  plan  for  the  protection  of  that  country 
similar  to  that  proposed  for  the  organiza- 
tion of  a  Homecroft  Reserve  in  the  Colo- 
rado River  Valley  and  in  the  Sacramento 
and  San  Joaquin  Valley  and  in  the  State 
of  Nevada. 

The  national  government  should  im- 
mediately acquire  not  less  than  1,000,000 
acres  of  land  bordering  on  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico  and  lying  between  Bayou  La- 
fourche  and  Atchafalaya  Bay  and  the 
Atchafalaya  River.  Then  a  great  dike 
should  be  built  by  the  national  govern- 
ment from  Barataria  Bay,  following  the 
most  practicable  course  along  the  shores 
of  the  Gulf  to  and  along  the  eastern  shore 
of  the  Atchafalaya  Bay  and  River  to  Mor- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      325 

gan  City.  Thence  this  great  dike  should 
skirt  the  northeastern  shore  of  Grand 
Lake  to  the  northern  end  of  that  lake. 
From  there  it  should  be  continued  north 
to  the  Mississippi  River  to  a  connection 
with  that  river  near  the  headwaters  of  the 
Atchafalaya  River. 

The  material  necessary  for  the  con- 
struction of  this  great  embankment  and 
protecting  levee  from  the  Gulf  north  to 
the  Mississippi  River  should  be  taken 
entirely  from  the  eastern  side  of  the  em- 
bankment, and  the  channel  thus  con- 
structed should  be  enlarged  sufficiently 
to  build  an  adequate  protecting  levee  on 
the  east  bank  of  the  channel.  The  artificial 
channel  thus  constructed  should  be  so 
large  as  to  constitute  a  controlled  outlet 
and  auxiliary  flood  channel  which,  with 
the  ten  mile  wide  Atchafalaya  wasteway, 
would  take  off  all  of  the  flood  flow  of  the 
Mississippi  River  at  that  point  in  excess 
of  the  high  water  level  as  it  rests  against 
the  levees  in  all  ordinary  flood  years. 
The  purpose  of  this  outlet  and  wasteway 
would  be  to  make  it  impossible  that  in 
any  year  of  unusual  floods  the  levees  or 


326 


OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 


TENN, 

MEMPHIS 


ARKANSAS 


Map  of  Louisiana,  showing  the  Great  Controlled  Outlet  at 
Old  River  and  the  Atchafalaya  Wasteway,  Auxiliary  Flood 
Water  Channels  and  Canals;  and  showing  also  the  Spillways 
and  Controlled  Wasteways  from  the  Mississippi  River  to  Lake 
Pontchartrain  and  Lake  Borgne,  and  the  Great  Gulf  Coast 
Dike. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      327 

banks  should  be  subjected  to  any  greater 
hydrostatic  pressure  than  in  ordinary 
years.  The  point  where  this  controlled 
outlet  would  leave  the  river  would  be 
approximately  the  same  place  where  the 
great  Morganza  Crevasse  broke  through 
the  levee  and  opened  a  way  for  the  flood 
to  sweep  with  its  devastating  force  through 
the  country  between  the  Mississippi  River 
and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

Ten  miles  west  of  the  great  north  and 
south  embankment  above  described,  on  a 
north  and  south  line  which  would  pass 
close  to  the  town  of  Melville  in  Louisiana 
and  follow  the  west  bank  of  the  Atcha- 
falaya  River  for  some  distance  below 
Melville,  another  great  embankment 
should  be  built,  paralleling  the  one  pre- 
viously described.  The  material  for  the 
construction  of  this  second  embankment 
should  be  taken  from  its  western  side, 
thus  forming  a  channel  which  should  be 
used  both  as  a  drainage  outlet  and  a 
navigable  canal  extending  from  the 
Bayou  Teche  to  the  Red  River.  At  the 
point  of  its  junction  with  the  Red  River, 
locks  should  be  constructed  which  would 


328         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

prevent  any  of  the  floods  of  the  Red  River 
from  ever  entering  or  passing  through 
this  navigable  drainage  canal.  From  that 
point  another  great  embankment  should 
be  extended  by  the  most  practicable  route 
to  the  west  or  northwest,  where  a  junction 
could  be  formed  with  the  high  land  in 
such  a  way  as  to  turn  all  the  surplus  flood 
drainage  from  the  Red  River  and  all 
other  rivers  to  the  north  into  the  great 
ten-mile  wide  wasteway  lying  between  the 
two  embankments  and  running  south  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Red  River  or  from  Old 
River  to  Grand  Lake. 

The  volume  of  water  that  would  make 
a  flood  twenty  feet  deep  in  a  channel  a 
mile  wide  could  be  carried  through  this 
wasteway  with  a  flow  of  only  about  two 
feet  in  depth,  and  two  great  benefits 
would  thereby  be  attained: 

First,  the  cutting  power  of  the  water 
could  be  controlled  and  its  danger  from 
that  cause  obviated. 

Second,  the  sediment  carried  by  the 
water  could  be  settled  across  a  strip  ten 
miles  wide,  which  could  be  thereby 
brought  to  a  level  and  its  fertility  enor- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      329 

mously  enriched  by  these  sedimentary 
deposits  which  it  would  receive  only  in 
years  of  great  floods.  In  the  meantime 
and  in  other  years  the  land  could  be 
used  for  meadow,  or  for  the  production 
of  crops  which  could  be  grown  after  the 
danger  of  overflow  in  any  season  had 
passed. 

This  ten-mile  wide  wasteway,  supple- 
mented by  the  auxiliary  flood  water 
channel  paralleling  its  eastern  embank- 
ment on  the  east,  would  completely  con- 
trol and  carry  to  the  Gulf  all  the  excess 
flood  water  in  years  of  extreme  floods,  and 
hold  the  high  water  level  of  the  Mississippi 
River  from  Old  River  to  the  Gulf  at  an 
absolutely  fixed  level  above  which  the 
river  would  never  rise. 

The  ten-mile  wide  wasteway  could  be 
extended  north  from  the  mouth  of  Red 
River  to  the  bluffs  at  Helena.  Then  from 
Helena  south  the  entire  Mississippi  Valley 
would  be  protected  against  danger  from 
floods  in  the  Mississippi  River  in  the 
extraordinary  flood  years  which  may  come 
only  once  in  a  generation,  and  yet  may 
come  in  any  two  consecutive  years  as 


330         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

they  did  in  1912  and  1913.  If  this  ten- 
mile  wide  wasteway,  with  its  auxiliary 
flood  water  channel  paralleling  it,  between 
it  and  the  river,  were  constructed  from 
Helena  to  the  mouth  of  the  Red  River, 
and  thence  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  in 
turn  supplemented  by  source  stream  con- 
trol of  the  floods  of  the  Ohio,  the  Mis- 
sissippi and  the  Missouri  Rivers,  the 
lowlands  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  could 
be  made  as  safe  from  overflow  or  damage 
by  devastating  floods  as  the  highlands  of 
the  Hudson  River  or  the  dry  plains  of 
eastern  Colorado.  The  entire  area  of  the 
Mississippi  River  Valley  now  subject  to 
overflow  is  about  29,000  square  miles. 
This  is  an  area  one-third  larger  than  the 
entire  cultivated  area  of  the  Empire  of 
Japan,  which  sustains  a  farming  popula- 
tion of  30,000,000  people.  The  lands  of 
the  Mississippi  River  Valley  are  infinitely 
richer  and  of  greater  natural  fertility 
than  the  farming  lands  of  Japan.  Every 
acre  of  the  rich  sedimentary  soil  of  the 
Delta  of  the  Mississippi  River  would, 
if  intensively  cultivated,  produce  food 
enough  to  feed  a  family  of  five,  with  a 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      331 

large  surplus  over  for  distribution  to  the 
world's  food  markets. 

The  entire  1,000,000  acres  to  be  ac- 
quired by  the  national  government  in 
Louisiana  should  be  immediately  acquired 
within  the  area  bounded  on  the  south  by 
the  great  embankment  along  the  shores 
of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  on  the  west  by 
the  great  wasteway  and  auxiliary  flood 
channel  to  be  built  from  the  mouth  of 
Red  River  to  Atchafalaya  Bay  and  on 
the  north  and  east  by  the  Mississippi 
River. 

This  entire  territory  would  be  so  ab- 
solutely and  completely  protected  from 
all  possibility  of  overflow  by  the  proposed 
system  of  protection  from  floods  or  over- 
flow and  from  Gulf  Storms  that  any  part 
of  it  could  be  safely  subdivided  into  acre- 
garden-homes  or  Homecrofts.  Every  acre 
would  be  adequate  for  the  support  of  a 
family  when  properly  reclaimed,  fertilized, 
and  intensively  cultivated.  The  variety  of 
food  that  would  be  available  for  the  people 
living  on  these  one  million  Homecrofts 
would  be  greater  probably  than  would 
be  within  the  reach  of  people  living  in  any 


332         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

other  section  of  the  world.  The  mild  and 
equable  climate  would  make  practicable 
a  successful  growth  of  every  possible 
product  of  garden,  orchard,  or  vineyard, 
including  oranges  and  grape-fruit.  Prox- 
imity to  the  Gulf  and  a  network  of  canals 
that  would  lace  and  interlace  the  country 
in  every  direction  would  furnish  them,  at 
trifling  cost  or  none  at  all,  with  the  most 
delicious  sea-foods,  fish,  crabs,  shrimps, 
crayfish,  and  oysters  without  limit.  Every 
canal  and  bayou  would  furnish  its  quota 
of  fish  and  the  oyster  beds  of  the  Louisi- 
ana coast  are  capable  of  almost  limitless 
extension. 

In  addition  to  the  cultivation  of  their 
Homecrofts  for  food  from  the  ground, 
the  Homecrofters  enlisted  in  the  Louisiana 
Homecroft  Reserve  would  be  afforded 
abundant  occupation  in  catching  or  pro- 
ducing sea-food  for  themselves  as  well  as 
for  export.  Anyone  not  familiar  with  the 
country  can  form  no  adequate  conception 
of  the  stupendous  possibilities  of  this 
bayou  and  Gulf  coast  country  along  this 
line  of  production  and  development. 

More  than  this,  the  luggermen  of  the 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      333 

bayous  and  the  Gulf  are  the  best  coast- 
wise and  shallow  sea  sailors  in  the  world, 
and  the  bays  and  bayous  of  Louisiana,  if 
inhabited  by  a  dense  population,  would 
once  again  breed  a  race  of  seafaring  people 
—  sailors  and  fishermen  —  to  man  our 
navy  or  merchant  marine. 

The  complete  adoption  of  the  plan 
advocated  for  the  reclamation  and  set- 
tlement of  these  swamp  and  overflow 
lands,  and  the  establishment  there  of  a 
perpetual  reserve  available  for  military 
service  whenever  needed  of  a  million  sea- 
soned and  hardened  citizen  soldiers,  in- 
volves doing  nothing  that  has  not  already 
been  done  by  other  nations  of  the  world. 

Holland  has  built  dikes  as  defenses 
against  the  inroads  of  the  ocean  greater 
even  than  those  proposed  in  Louisiana, 
and  the  plans  of  Holland  for  reclaiming 
for  agriculture  vast  areas  of  land  now 
buried  beneath  the  waters  of  the  Zuyder 
Zee  are  much  bolder  in  conception  and 
more  difficult  of  accomplishment. 

Australia  and  New  Zealand  have  both 
demonstrated  the  practicability  and 
proved  the  success  of  a  national  policy 


334         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

of  land  acquisition  and  colonization. 
What  Australia  has  done  in  the  reclamation 
and  settlement  of  her  deserts,  we  can  do 
not  only  on  our  deserts  but  also  in  our 
swamps. 

Switzerland  and  Australia  have  both 
proved  the  practicability  of  a  military 
system  similar  to  that  which  it  is  proposed 
to  establish  for  the  defense  of  the  Gulf 
Gateway  of  this  nation.  The  plan  urged 
for  Louisiana  would  in  many  respects  be 
an  improvement  upon  a  plan  which  made 
it  necessary  to  call  men  from  commercial 
or  industrial  employment  for  military 
service. 


CHAPTER  XII 

I  HE  result  of  the  adoption  of  the  Home- 
croft  Reserve  System  would  be  that  this 
generation  would  bequeath  to  future  genera- 
tions a  country  freed  forever  from  the  menace 
of  militarism  or  military  despotism,  and 
also  freed  from  the  burdens  of  military  and 
naval  establishments.  At  the  same  time, 
the  United  States  would  be  safeguarded 
against  internal  dangers  and  made  impreg- 
nable against  attack  or  invasion  by  any 
foreign  power.  Every  patriotic  citizen  of 
the  United  States  should  have  that  thought 
graven  on  his  mind.  No  other  plan  can  be 
devised  that  will  accomplish  those  results. 

The  reasons  why  they  will  be  accom- 
plished by  the  Homecraft  Reserve  Sys- 
tem may  be  briefly  summarized. 

From  the  standpoint  of  national  de- 
fense, and  regarding  war  as  a  possibility, 
the  following  are  the  advantages  of  the 
system: 

First:  The   maintenance   of   a   Home- 


336          OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

croft  Reserve  of  5,000,000  trained  soldiers 
would  ultimately  cost  the  government 
nothing.  The  entire  investment  required 
for  the  establishment  of  the  Reserve  would 
be  repaid  with  interest  by  the  revenues 
from  the  Homecroft  rentals,  and  ulti- 
mately a  revenue  of  $300,000,000  would 
be  annually  returned  to  the  national  gov- 
ernment in  excess  of  the  entire  expense  of 
the  maintenance  of  the  Reserves. 

Second:  There  would  be  no  burden  of  a 
pension  roll  as  the  result  of  actual  service 
by  the  Homecroft  Reservists  in  the  event 
of  war.  The  Life  Insurance  System  em- 
bodied in  the  general  plan  for  a  Homecroft 
Reserve  would  be  substituted  for  a  pension 
system. 

Third:  Every  requirement  of  necessary 
military  training  for  actual  service  in  the 
field  would  be  provided.  Each  Depart- 
ment of  the  Homecroft  Reserve,  embrac- 
ing a  million  men,  would  be  concentrated 
and  fully  organized,  with  an  annual  en- 
campment and  field  maneuvers. 

Fourth:  The  whole  body  of  the  Home- 
croft Reserve  would  be  men  physically 
hardened  and  trained  to  every  duty  re- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      337 

quired  of  a  soldier  in  actual  warfare.  They 
would  be  inured  to  long  marches  and  to 
every  hardship  of  a  campaign  in  the  field. 
They  would  at  all  times  be  mobilized  and 
ready  for  instant  service. 

Fifth:  The  whole  5,000,000  men  in  the 
Homecroft  Reserve  could  be  sent  into 
active  service  without  calling  a  man  from 
any  industry  or  commercial  employment 
where  he  might  be  needed.  The  United 
States  could  put  an  army  of  five  million  men 
in  the  field  at  a  moment's  notice,  without 
the  slightest  interference  with  commerce, 
manufacturing,  or  any  branch  of  industry. 

Sixth:  No  length  of  actual  field  service 
would  impose  any  hardship  or  priva- 
tion on  the  families  of  any  of  the  Home- 
croft  Reservists.  Each  family  would 
continue  to  occupy  and  get  its  living  from 
the  Homecroft  during  the  absence  of  the 
soldier  of  the  family.  The  routine  of  the 
family  and  community  life  would  continue 
undisturbed. 

For  the  first  fifty  year  period  the  cost 
of  maintaining  our  present  standing  army 
of  less  than  100,000  men  will  be  five  billion 
dollars. 


338         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

During  that  same  period  the  revenues 
from  the  Homecroft  Reserve  rentals  would 
repay  the  entire  investment  required  for 
the  establishment  and  maintenance  of  the 
Reserve,  and  the  ultimate  cost  to  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  maintenance  for  fifty  years 
of  a  reserve  of  five  million  men  would  be 
nothing. 

For  the  second  fifty  year  period,  the 
net  revenues  from  the  Homecroft  Reserve 
rentals,  over  and  above  the  entire  cost  of 
the  maintenance  of  the  Reserve,  would  be 
fifteen  billion  dollars,  —  $300,000,000  a 
year  every  year  for  fifty  years,  —  more 
than  enough  to  cover  the  entire  expense 
of  our  standing  Army  and  Navy,  as  at 
present  maintained. 

In  other  words,  the  profit  to  the  gov- 
ernment from  establishing  a  Military 
Reserve  which  would  be  at  the  same  time 
a  great  Educational  Institution  for  train- 
ing Citizens  as  well  as  Soldiers,  and  a 
Peace  Establishment  for  Food  Production, 
would  be  large  enough  to  cover  the  entire 
cost  of  the  nation's  regular  Military  and 
Naval  Establishments.  For  all  time  there- 
after, the  country  would  be  relieved  from 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      339 

the  heavy  financial  burdens  of  maintaining 
them.  The  revenues  that  the  regular 
Military  and  Naval  Establishments  will 
otherwise  absorb  could  be  diverted  to 
building  internal  improvements,  high- 
ways, waterways,  railways,  reclaiming 
lands,  safeguarding  against  floods,  pre- 
venting forest  fires,  planting  forests,  and 
supporting  a  great  national  educational 
system  that  would  make  the  Homecroft 
Slogan  the  heritage  of  every  child  born 
to  citizenship  in  the  United  States  of 
America: 

Every  Child  in  a  Garden, 

Every  Mother  in  a  Homecroft,  and 

Individual  Industrial  Independence 

For  every  Worker  in  a 

Home  of  his  own  on  the  Land. 

From  the  standpoint  of  peace,  if  there 
should  never  be  another  war,  and  as  a 
means  of  national  defense  against  the 
dangers  that  menace  the  country  from 
within  —  civil  conflict,  class  conflict,  social 
upheaval,  racial  deterioration,  and  a  de- 
generated citizenship  —  the  advantages  of 
the  Homecroft  Reserve  System  may  be 
epitomized  as  follows: 


340         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

First:  Every  Homecraft  Reserve  Rural 
Settlement  of  100,000  acres  — 100,000 
Reservists  —  100,000  families,  created  by 
the  national  government,  will  be  a  model 
for  an  industrial  community  which  will 
demonstrate  that  the  cure  for  city  conges- 
tion is  the  Homecroft  Life  in  the  suburbs 
or  in  nearby  Homecroft  Villages. 

Second:  It  will  further  demonstrate  that 
the  physical  and  mental  deterioration, 
poverty,  disease,  crime,  human  degener- 
acy, and  racial  decay  now  being  caused 
by  the  tenement  life  can  be  prevented  by 
the  Homecroft  Life. 

Third:  Child  labor  and  Woman  labor 
in  factories  will  be  proved  to  be  economic 
waste  because  of  the  larger  value  of  that 
labor  at  home  devoted  to  producing  food 
for  the  family  from  garden  and  poultry 
yard,  and  preparing  and  preserving  it  for 
home  consumption.  It  will  be  demon- 
strated that  no  child  or  woman  can  be 
spared  from  a  Homecroft  for  work  in  a 
factory. 

Fourth:  The  fact  will  be  established 
that  the  remedy  for  unemployment  is 
universal  Homecroft  Training  in  the  public 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      341 

schools,  the  establishment  of  all  wage- 
workers  in  Suburban  Homecrofts  or  Home- 
croft  Villages,  and  that  every  unemployed 
man  or  woman  shall  be  set  to  work  learn- 
ing to  be  a  Homecrofter. 

Fifth:  One  million  scientifically  trained 
Homecrofters  would  be  graduated  an- 
nually from  the  National  Homecroft  Re- 
serve System,  —  ten  million  every  ten 
years,  —  with  their  families.  These  would 
scatter  into  every  section  of  the  United 
States  and  would  leaven  a  large  loaf. 
They  would  be  a  tremendous  force  to 
counteract  the  evil  influences  generated  in 
the  tenements.  No  Homecrofter 's  family 
would  ever  be  content  to  live  in  a  flat  or 
a  tenement.  They  would  have  learned 
the  productive  value  of  a  Homecroft  —  a 
home  with  a  piece  of  ground  that  will 
produce  food  for  the  family. 

Sixth:  The  demonstration  of  the  value 
of  the  Homecroft  Life  spread  throughout 
the  United  States  by  the  millions  of  Home- 
croft Reserve  graduates  would  lead  to  a 
complete  reconstruction  of  the  Public 
School  System  of  every  State.  The  year 
would  be  divided  into  two  terms  —  one, 


342         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

a  six  months'  term  from  fall  until  spring, 
during  which  the  courses  of  study  now 
pursued  would  be  continued;  the  other, 
a  six  months'  term  from  spring  until  fall, 
covering  the  entire  growing  season,  dur- 
ing which  fruit-growing,  truck-gardening, 
berry-culture,  poultry-raising,  home-mak- 
ing, home-keeping,  and  home-handicraft 
would  be  taught.  In  the  cities  these 
Summer  Homecroft  Schools  would  be  in 
the  suburbs  and  would  give  every  city  child 
a  chance  to  spend  its  days  in  the  sunshine 
and  fresh  air,  among  the  trees,  birds,  fields, 
and  flowers,  for  six  months  of  every  year. 

Every  great  institution  must  have  a 
gradual  growth.  The  Homecroft  Reserve 
System  should  be  started  on  a  compara- 
tively small  scale  in  places  where  the  im- 
mediate need  of  the  practical  benefits  it 
will  accomplish  are  most  manifest.  Its 
enlargement  will  follow  as  a  natural  evolu- 
tion. Once  well  under  way,  it  will  grow 
by  leaps  and  bounds,  like  the  rural  mail 
service  or  the  Agricultural  Department 
of  the  national  government. 

When  the  electric  light  was  first  dem- 
onstrated to  be  a  scientific  success,  few 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      343 

realized  in  how  short  a  time  electricity 
would  light  the  world.  The  development 
of  electric  transportation  and  of  the  auto- 
mobile are  familiar  illustrations.  Only  a 
few  years  have  elapsed  since  Kipling 
wrote  "Across  the  Atlantic  with  the  Irish 
Mail."  How  many  would  then  have  be- 
lieved possible  the  work  of  the  Aeroplane 
Service  in  the  present  war?  And  yet,  all 
that  has  so  far  been  done  is  only  a  forecast 
of  greater  development  in  aerial  naviga- 
tion in  the  near  future.  The  original 
inventor  of  the  telephone  has  seen  the 
evolution  of  its  vast  utilization  and  re- 
cently was  the  first  to  talk  over  a  wire 
across  the  continent. 

No  one  would  for  a  moment  question 
that  the  national  government  could  estab- 
lish an  educational  institution  in  which 
one  thousand  men  with  their  families 
could  be  located  in  a  cottage  on  an  acre  of 
ground,  and  the  men  trained  in  truck- 
gardening  and  poultry  raising,  and  the 
women  trained  to  cook  the  products  of  the 
garden  and  poultry  yard  for  the  family 
table.  That  is  all  there  is  to  it;  and  to 
train  a  thousand  men  in  that  way  is  no 


344         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

more  difficult  than  to  take  a  thousand 
raw  recruits  and  transform  them  into  a 
regiment  of  trained  soldiers.  It  is  likewise 
beyond  question  that  the  same  man  can 
be  trained  for  both  vocations,  and  every 
Homecroft  Reservist  would  be  so  trained. 
Gardeners  make  ideal  soldiers.  The  Jap- 
anese proved  that. 

No  one  familiar  with  the  multitude  of 
cases  where  it  has  been  done,  would  have 
any  doubt  that  a  man  and  woman  who 
know  how  to  intensively  cultivate  an 
acre  can  produce  from  it  what  that  man 
and  that  woman  need  for  their  own 
family  to  eat,  and  a  surplus  product 
worth  from  five  hundred  to  a  thousand 
dollars  a  year  or  more.  Neither  would 
they  doubt  that  a  thousand  could  do  the 
same  thing.  Nor,  again,  would  they  doubt 
that  one  thousand  men  and  women  of 
average  intelligence  and  industry,  who  did 
not  know  how,  could  learn  the  way  to 
do  it  from  competent  instructors. 

If  that  can  be  done  with  one  thousand 
it  can  be  done  with  ten  thousand;  and  if 
it  can  be  done  with  ten  thousand  it  can 
be  done  with  one  hundred  thousand,  or 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      345 

one  million,  or  five  million.  It  would  in- 
deed be  strange  if  this  nation  could  not 
train  five  million  families  so  they  would 
be  competent  truck-gardeners,  when  that 
vocation  has  been  mastered  by  thirty 
million  of  Japan's  rural  population. 

The  militarists  contend  that  the  Stand- 
ing Army  should  be  increased  to  200,000 
men,  an  increase  of  100,000,  assuming  that 
the  present  army  were  enlisted  up  to  its 
full  authorized  strength  of  100,000.  A 
Homecroft  Reserve  of  100,000  men,  prop- 
erly established,  organized,  and  trained, 
would  be  of  vastly  more  value  to  the 
country  for  national  defense  than  an  in- 
crease of  100,000  men  in  the  Standing 
Army;  but  there  should  be  no  such  limit 
on  the  extension  of  the  Homecroft  Re- 
serve. It  should  be  steadily  increased 
until  the  full  quota  of  5,000,000  has  been 
established.  But  in  order  to  draw  com- 
parisons between  the  respective  advan- 
tages of  the  two  systems,  let  it  be  assumed 
that  the  establishment  of  a  Homecroft 
Reserve  were  to  be  first  authorized  by 
Congress  for  100,000  men,  the  same  num- 
ber that  it  is  contended  should  be  added 


346         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

to  the  regular  Standing  Army.  In  that 
event  the  most  immediate  beneficial  results 
would  be  secured  by  the  establishment  of 
Homecroft  Reserve  Rural  Settlements 
of  ten  thousand  acres  each  (from  which 
they  should  be  developed  to  a  strength 
of  not  less  than  one  hundred  thousand 
each  as  rapidly  as  possible)  in  the  follow- 
ing locations: 

In  California,  ten  thousand  acres  should 
be  acquired  by  the  national  government 
in  the  vicinity  of  Redding  in  the  upper 
Sacramento  Valley,  and  settled  with  that 
number  of  Homecroft  Reservists  who 
would  work  on  the  Iron  Canyon  Reservoir 
and  the  system  of  diversion  canals  there- 
from. 

Ten  thousand  acres  should  be  acquired 
on  the  west  side  of  the  Sacramento  Valley, 
near  Colusa,  and  10,000  Homecroft  Re- 
servists located  thereon,  who  would  work 
on  a  great  system  to  control  the  flood 
waters  of  the  Sacramento  River,  and  to 
save  and  utilize  the  silt  for  fertilization 
by  building  a  series  of  large  settling 
basins. 

Ten  thousand  acres  should  be  acquired 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      347 

near  Stockton  where  10,000  Homecraft 
Reservists  would  be  located,  who  would 
work  on  the  Calaveras  Reservoir  and  an 
irrigation  system  to  utilize  the  stored 
water  therefrom,  and  also  carry  forward 
any  further  work  necessary  for  the  com- 
plete protection  of  Stockton  and  the  delta 
of  the  San  Joaquin  River  from  floods. 

Ten  thousand  acres  should  be  acquired 
near  Fresno,  where  10,000  Homecroft 
Reservists  would  be  located,  who  would 
work  on  a  navigable  channel  to  Fresno 
and  a  drainage  canal  through  the  center 
of  the  San  Joaquin  Valley. 

Ten  thousand  acres  should  be  acquired 
near  Bakersfield,  where  10,000  Homecroft 
Reservists  would  be  located,  who  would 
work  on  the  irrigation  canals  and  systems 
necessary  for  the  complete  reclamation  of 
the  lands  on  which  they  were  settled,  and 
of  other  lands  acquired  by  the  national 
government  in  the  San  Joaquin  Valley. 

That  would  provide  a  force  of  50,000 
Homecroft  Reservists  in  the  one  particular 
portion  of  the  United  States  where  they 
are  most  likely  to  be  needed  for  actual 
military  service. 


348         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

In  Louisiana,  ten  thousand  acres  should 
be  acquired  of  the  best  garden  land  in  the 
Bayou  Teche  Country,  on  which  10,000 
Homecroft  Reservists  would  be  located, 
and  set  to  work  building  the  great  Atcha- 
falaya  Controlled  Outlet,  and  the  western 
dike  to  form  the  Auxiliary  Flood  Water 
Channel  from  Old  River  to  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico. 

Ten  thousand  acres  should  be  acquired 
in  the  vicinity  of  New  Roads,  where 
10,000  Homecroft  Reservists  would  be 
located,  and  set  to  work  building  the 
north  and  south  dike  forming  the  eastern 
bank  of  the  auxiliary  flood  water  channel 
from  Old  River  to  Morgan  City  and 
thence  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  to  protect 
the  whole  territory  between  the  Atcha- 
falaya  River  and  the  Mississippi  River 
from  overflow  by  backwater  from  the 
Atchafalaya. 

That  would  establish  £0,000  Homecroft 
Reservists  at  a  point  from  which  they  could 
be  quickly  transported  to  any  point  where 
troops  might  be  needed  for  the  defense  of 
the  Gulf  Coast  or  the  Mexican  Border. 

In  West  Virginia,  ten  thousand  acres 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      349 

should  be  acquired  in  the  valley  of  the 
Monongahela  River  and  its  tributaries  in 
that  State  for  10,000  Homecroft  Reserv- 
ists who  would  do  the  work  of  building 
the  necessary  reservoirs  and  works  for  the 
regulation  of  the  flow  of  the  Monon- 
gahela River  and  the  prevention  of  floods 
thereon. 

Ten  thousand  acres  should  be  acquired 
in  the  valley  of  the  Little  Kanawha  near 
Parkersburg,  and  between  Parkersburg 
and  Huntington,  and  10,000  Homecrofters 
located  thereon,  who  would  labor  on  the 
works  necessary  for  the  development  of 
all  the  water  power  capable  of  develop- 
ment in  West  Virginia  and  for  the  regula- 
tion of  the  flow  of  every  river  flowing  out 
of  West  Virginia  into  the  Ohio  so  there 
would  be  no  more  floods  from  those  rivers. 

This  West  Virginia  Department  of  the 
Homecroft  Reserve  could  be  transported 
to  any  point  on  the  Atlantic  Seacoast  in  a 
very  brief  time.  In  a  day  troops  for  the 
defense  of  New  York  could  be  rushed  from 
West  Virginia  to  that  city  over  the  Penn- 
sylvania, Baltimore  and  Ohio  and  Chesa- 
peake and  Ohio  Railroads. 


350         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

Ten  thousand  Homecrofters  should  be 
located  in  Northern  Minnesota,  in  the 
Lake  Region,  where  the  Mississippi  River 
has  its  sources.  They  should  be  set  to 
work  to  enlarge  the  present  National 
Reservoir  System  on  the  headwaters  of 
the  Mississippi  River  until  the  entire 
flow  of  the  Mississippi  River  at  Minneap- 
olis and  St.  Paul  had  been  completely 
equalized  throughout  the  year,  for  the 
development  of  power  at  those  cities,  and 
for  the  improvement  of  navigation  on  the 
upper  Mississippi. 

The  construction  work  indicated  above, 
which  should  be  done  by  the  Homecroft 
Reserve  in  the  locations  named,  should  be 
carried  forward  simultaneously  with  the 
work  of  reclaiming  or  preparing  for  culti- 
vation in  acre  tracts  and  building  the  cot- 
tage homes  on  the  lands  set  apart  for  the 
establishment  of  the  Homecroft  Reserves 
thereon.  A  part  of  the  men  should  be  en- 
gaged in  this  work  while  others  were  en- 
gaged on  the  projects  above  specified  for 
the  construction  of  which  their  labor  would 
be  utilized. 

The  Reservists  would  be  paid  wages  for 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      351 

all  this  work  which  would  give  them  a 
start  and  enable  them  to  establish  them- 
selves on  their  Homecrofts  as  soon  as  the 
houses  were  ready  for  occupancy.  In 
many  cases  it  would  probably  be  found 
that  families  of  Homecrofters  would  prefer 
to  live  on  their  homecroft  while  the  work 
of  completing  its  construction  was  being 
done,  and  would  provide  tents  or  inex- 
pensive houses  for  such  temporary  occu- 
pancy, at  their  own  expense. 

The  immediate  establishment  of  these 
initial  units  of  the  Homecroft  Reserve, 
aggregating  only  100,000  men,  would  en- 
large the  military  forces  of  the  United  States 
to  the  extent  that  it  is  now  vigorously  con- 
tended the  standing  army  should  be  immedi- 
ately enlarged. 

Instead  of  being  condemned  to  idleness 
in  barracks,  the  soldiers  comprising  the 
increased  forces  would  be  doing  useful  and 
productive  labor  and  would  build  enor- 
mously valuable  internal  improvements. 

It  would  cost  $100,000,000  a  year  to 
maintain,  as  a  part  of  the  present  mili- 
tary system  of  the  United  States,  the 
proposed  increase  of  100,000  men,  which 


352         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

the  Militarists  contend  should  be  added  to 
the  regular  army  for  our  national  defense. 

That  $100,000,000  a  year,  divided 
among  the  projects  above  named,  would 
provide  the  following  amount  for  each 
project  annually  until  completed: 

Iron  Canyon  Reservoir  and  Canals  .  .  $10,000,000 

Sacramento  River  Flood  Control    .  .  10,000,000 

Calaveras  Reservoir  and  Canals  .    .  .  10,000,000 

San  Joaquin  River  Flood  Protection  .  10,000,000 

Drainage  Canal  to  Bakersfield     .    .  .  10,000,000 

Atchafalaya  Controlled  Outlet    .    .  .  10,000,000 

Atchafalaya  Protection  Levees    .    .  .  10,000,000 

Monongahela  River  Reservoirs   .    .  .  10,000,000 

Ohio  River  Tributaries  Reservoirs  .  .  10,000,000 

Mississippi  River  Reservoirs    ....  10,000,000 

Total $100,000,000 

That  amount  of  money  for  one  year  would 
complete  most  of  the  above  projects. 

Another  $100,000,000  —  the  amount  an 
additional  100,000  men  added  to  the 
regular  army  would  cost  for  the  second 
year  —  would  provide  $1000  for  the 
improvement  of  every  acre  of  the  total 
100,000  acres  purchased  or  set  apart  by 
the  government  for  subdivision  into  one 
acre  Homecrofts  for  the  Homecroft  Re- 
serves in  California,  Minnesota,  Louisiana, 
and  West  Virginia.  Of  that  $1000  an 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      353 

acre,  $100  would  more  than  cover  its 
cost,  $200  an  acre  would  cover  the  in- 
vestment for  reclamation  and  preparation 
for  occupation,  and  $500  an  acre  would 
cover  the  cost  of  the  house  and  outbuild- 
ings, leaving  a  surplus  to  the  government 
of  $200  an  acre  on  each  of  the  100,000 
Homecrofts. 

Every  Homecroft  would  thereafter  re- 
turn to  the  government  from  the  rental 
charge  thereon,  six  per  cent  on  a  valuation 
of  $1000  to  cover  interest  and  sinking 
fund,  and  an  additional  six  per  cent  for  all 
other  expenses  of  instruction,  operation, 
and  maintenance.  And  perpetually  there- 
after, for  all  time,  those  100,000  Home- 
crofts  would  provide  a  permanent  force  of 
100,000  Reservists  for  the  national  defense, 
without  any  cost  to  the  government  for 
their  maintenance. 

The  Homecroft  Reserves  should  be  es- 
tablished on  the  basis  of  an  organization 
of  1000  —  ten  companies  of  100  each  — 
in  one  organized  and  united  community. 
These  community  organizations,  which 
would  each  furnish  a  regiment  in  the  Re- 
serve, would  be  organized  primarily  as 


354         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

Educational  Institutions,  with  Instructors 
to  train  the  Homecrofters  in  every  branch 
of  scientific  truck-gardening,  fruit-grow- 
ing, berry-culture,  poultry-raising,  prepar- 
ing products  for  market  and  for  home 
consumption,  cooperative  purchase  of  sup- 
plies and  distribution  of  products,  home- 
handicraft  and  "housekeeping  by  the  year.'9 
The  officers  of  each  company  and  of  the 
regiment  would  be  resident  Homecrofters 
like  the  rest.  They  would  have  received 
their  military  training  in  military  schools 
established  and  maintained  by  the  War 
Department  for  that  purpose.  No  better 
use  could  be  made  of  the  military  posts  now 
in  existence  and  of  their  equipment  and 
buildings  than  to  use  them  as  military 
schools  for  training  officers  under  the  ex- 
clusive control  and  management  of  the 
War  Department.  Every  company  in  the 
Homecroft  Reserve  should  be  thoroughly 
drilled  at  least  once  every  week  for  ten 
months  of  the  year,  leaving  two  months 
for  a  long  march  and  an  annual  encamp- 
ment and  field  maneuvers. 

The  number  of  regiments  in  the  Home- 
croft  Reserve  could  be  increased  just  as 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      355 

fast  as  the  necessary  Educational  and 
Military  Instructors  could  be  developed 
for  the  establishment  of  new  Homecroft 
Reserve  Rural  Settlements.  That  would 
be  very  rapidly,  after  the  first  few  years. 
Once  the  details  had  been  worked  out  for 
one  Homecroft  Reserve  Rural  Settle- 
ment of  10,000  men,  the  duplication  of  the 
plan  would  be  routine  work. 

There  would  be  no  possibility  of  en- 
larging the  system  fast  enough  to  keep 
pace  with  the  applications  for  enlistment. 
The  benefits  to  the  individual  who  served 
a  five  years'  enlistment  in  the  Homecroft 
Reserve  would  be  obvious  to  the  whole 
people.  More  than  that,  the  opportunity 
to  combine  a  soldier's  patriotic  service  to 
his  country  with  home  life  and  educa- 
tional instruction  for  the  entire  family 
would  appeal  to  a  multitude  of  industrious 
families  without  capital.  They  would  see 
the  opportunity  through  that  channel  to 
establish  themselves  in  homes  of  their  own 
on  the  land.  That  is  the  ambition  and 
hope  of  millions  of  our  fast  multiplying 
population. 

A  charge  of  Ten  Dollars  a  month  as 


356         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

the  rental  value  of  each  acre  Homecroft 
would  be  a  very  low  amount  to  be  paid  for 
the  use  and  occupation  of  the  Homecroft 
and  the  instruction  and  training  going  with 
it.  That  charge  would  provide  an  annual 
rental  to  the  government  of  $120  from 
each  and  every  Homecroft.  That  would 
cover,  on  a  fixed  valuation  of  $1000  on 
each  Homecroft,  four  per  cent  interest  and 
two  per  cent  for  a  sinking  fund,  and  would 
leave  six  per  cent  for  cost  of  operation 
and  maintenance,  cost  of  educational  in- 
struction and  schools,  cost  of  life  insur- 
ance, and  cost  of  maintenance  of  military 
equipment  and  organization. 

In  return  for  this  annual  rental  of  $120, 
the  Homecrofter  would  get  a  home  that 
would  yield  him  a  comfortable  income, 
instruction  in  everything  he  would  need 
to  know  to  produce  the  desired  results 
from  its  intensive  cultivation,  schooling 
for  his  children,  —  in  fact  every  advan- 
tage that  comes  within  the  compass  of  a 
wage  earner's  life,  —  and  during  the  five 
year  period  of  enlistment  he  would  learn 
what  would  be  to  him  the  most  valuable 
trade  he  could  be  taught  —  the  trade  of 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      357 

getting  his  own  living  by  his  own  labor 
and  that  of  his  family  from  an  acre  of 
ground. 

He  would  be  able  —  and  every  en- 
listed Homecrofter  would  be  trained  with 
that  end  in  view  —  to  lay  by  enough 
from  his  sales  of  surplus  products  during 
the  five  years  of  his  service  to  buy  a  Home- 
croft  of  his  own,  at  the  expiration  of  that 
term,  in  any  part  of  the  country  where  he 
desired  to  settle.  He  should  save  at  least 
$2000  during  the  five  years. 

A  life  and  accident  insurance  system 
would  be  worked  out  in  all  its  details,  and 
a  sufficient  part  of  the  annual  rental  of 
$120  a  year  set  apart  for  that  purpose  to 
provide  both  accident  and  life  insurance 
for  every  Homecrofter  during  the  five 
year  period  of  service  in  the  reserve.  In 
the  event  of  the  death  or  permanent  dis- 
ability of  any  Homecrofter,  either  in  time 
of  peace  or  during  actual  warfare,  the  fee 
simple  title  to  an  acre  Homecroft  in  lieu 
of  a  pension  should  vest  in  his  heirs  or  in 
the  person  who  would  have  been  entitled  to 
a  pension  if  the  general  pension  system  had 
been  applicable  to  the  case.  In  this  way 


358         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

the  burden  on  the  people  of  an  enormous 
pension  roll  as  the  aftermath  of  a  war 
would  be  obviated.  The  value  of  the 
Homecraft  secured  in  lieu  of  a  pension 
would  be  much  more  than  $1000.  It 
would  not  only  furnish  a  permanent  home 
for  the  survivors,  but  a  home  that  would 
yield  them  a  living  and  $500  or  $1000  a 
year  and  over  as  the  income  from  fruit, 
berries,  vegetables,  and  poultry  produced 
on  the  Homecroft. 

The  advantages  to  the  family  of  the 
Reservist  of  this  plan  over  the  ordinary 
pension  system  is  too  manifest  to  need 
comment.  Its  advantage  to  the  people 
can  be  appreciated  when  we  bear  in  mind 
that  the  amount  already  paid  out  for 
pensions  on  account  of  the  Civil  War  is 
$4,457,974,496.47  and  $46,092,740.84  more 
on  account  of  the  Spanish-American  and 
Philippine  Wars. 

The  Homecrofts  that  would  go  to  the 
families  of  Reservists  under  this  plan 
would  not  be  located  in  the  same  com- 
munities as  those  occupied  by  active  Re- 
servists, but  in  Homecroft  Rural  Settle- 
ments created  and  organized  for  the  special 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      359 

purpose  of  Homecraft  grants  in  lieu  of 
pensions  or  life  insurance  or  accident  in- 
surance. The  right  to  a  Homecroft  in 
lieu  of  a  pension  should  arise  not  only  in 
case  of  death,  but  also  in  the  event  of 
any  serious  permanent  injury  disabling 
the  Reservist  from  active  service  or  from 
labor  in  ordinary  commercial  or  industrial 
vocations. 

That  is  what  the  Homecroft  Reserve  Sys- 
tem would  offer  to  the  individual  Homecrofter. 
Is  there  any  doubt  that  it  is  a  good  proposi- 
tion for  him  and  his  family? 

The  chief  difficulty  in  bringing  the  public 
to  a  realization  of  the  advantages  of  the 
Homecroft  Reserve  System,  particularly 
its  financial  advantages,  is  to  get  away 
from  the  common  idea  that  a  thing  can 
be  done  on  a  small  scale,  but  not  on  a 
large  scale.  Many  things  can  be  done  on  a 
large  scale  better  and  more  economically 
than  on  a  small  scale,  and  this  is  one  of 
them. 

The  problem  of  providing  adequately  for 
the  national  defense  of  a  country  as  big  as 
the  United  States  is  a  large  problem  and  must 
be  solved  in  a  large  way. 


360         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

The  total  amount  that  it  would  be 
necessary  for  the  United  States  to  invest, 
in  order  to  permanently  establish  a  Home- 
croft  Reserve  of  5,000,000  trained  soldiers, 
would  be  less  than  it  has  already  paid  out 
for  pensions;  and  its  whole  investment  in 
the  Homecroft  Reserve  Establishment 
would  be  returned  to  the  government 
with  interest.  The  amount  the  United 
States  has  already  paid  for  pensions 
amounts  to  $4,729,957,370.65.  Within 
two  years  it  will  have  exceeded  five  bil- 
lion dollars. 

Most  people  lose  sight  of  the  magnitude 
of  the  present  appropriations,  expendi- 
tures, and  operations  of  the  United  States, 
as  well  as  of  their  wastefulness  under  the 
present  military  system.  We  are  spend- 
ing over  $100,000,000  a  year  on  a  standing 
army  of  less  than  100,000  enlisted  men. 
That  amounts  to  a  billion  dollars  in  ten 
years.  It  is  five  billion  dollars  in  fifty 
years.  And  we  may  be  certain  that  five 
billion  dollars  will  be  spent,  and  probably 
much  more,  in  the  next  fifty  years  on  a 
standing  army.  When  that  has  been 
spent  it  is  absolutely  gone,  just  as  much 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      361 

as  though  it  had  been  invested  in  fire 
crackers  and  they  had  all  been  set  off  and 
there  was  nothing  left,  not  even  noise. 

It  is  not  contended  that  this  country 
should  spend  less  than  $100,000,000  a 
year  on  its  army,  but  it  is  contended  that 
it  should  not  spend  more.  And  for  what  it 
does  spend  it  should  get  larger  results. 
$100,000,000  a  year  ought  to  be  enough 
to  maintain  an  army  enlisted  to  the  full 
strength  of  100,000  men  to  which  the 
army  is  now  limited  by  Act  of  Congress. 
In  addition  it  should  support  the  neces- 
sary organization  and  training  schools  to 
furnish  all  the  officers  required  for  the 
National  Construction  Reserve  and  for 
the  National  Homecroft  Reserve.  The 
officers  of  the  Homecroft  Reserve  should  be 
permanently  located  as  residents  of  the 
community  where  their  regiment  is  es- 
tablished. 

The  officers  for  the  National  Construc- 
tion Reserve  should  be  attached  to  the 
Regular  Army  except  when  detailed  for 
the  work  of  training  those  reserves  during 
the  period  set  apart  for  that  work  each 
year.  At  least  one-half  of  the  rank  and  file 


362         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

of  a  regular  force  of  100,000  men  in  the 
Standing  Army  should  be  composed  of 
men  trained  for  service  as  officers  in  the 
National  Construction  Reserve,  and  avail- 
able for  instant  transformation  into  such 
officers.  The  training  of  those  officers 
should  be  one  of  the  most  important 
functions  of  the  Regular  Army.  The  Army 
should  forthwith  take  up  that  work  and 
cease  any  further  connection  with  the  civil 
work  of  internal  improvements. 

//  the  Standing  Army  of  the  United 
States  were  increased  to  an  actually  enlisted 
strength  of  200,000  men  as  is  now  being 
urged,  it  would  mean  the  addition  of  another 
$100,000,000  a  year  to  the  military  burdens 
of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  we 
would  still  be  without  any  adequate  national 
defense  in  case  of  war  with  a  first-class 
power. 

Now  compare  the  plan  for  a  Homecroft 
Reserve  and  its  results,  from  the  financial 
point  of  view,  with  this  proposition  to 
increase  the  Regular  Army  to  a  total 
strength  of  200,000  men. 

The  annual  cost  of  an  increase  of  100,000 
men  in  the  Regular  Army  would  be 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      363 

$100,000,000  a  year;  or  $5,000,000,000  in 
fifty  years.  Every  dollar  of  that  huge 
sum  would  be  drawn  from  the  people  by 
taxation.  When  spent  it  would  be  gone, 
leaving  nothing  to  show  for  its  expenditure. 
The  economic  value  of  the  labor  of  100,- 
000  men  would  be  wasted.  That  would  be 
another  $5,000,000,000  in  fifty  years,  es- 
timating the  potential  labor  value  of 
each  man  at  $1000  a  year.  That  makes 
the  stupendous  total  economic  loss  and 
waste  of  money  and  human  labor  of  ten 
billion  dollars  in  fifty  years,  —  an  amount 
ten  times  as  large  as  the  whole  national 
debt  of  the  United  States,  —  an  amount  as 
large  as  the  combined  national  debts  of 
Great  Britain  and  France,  which  an 
eminent  authority  has  said  are  so  large 
that  they  never  can  be  paid. 

Measure  up  against  that  proposition  the 
Homecroft  Reserve  plan  and  compare  re- 
sults: 

Every  $1000  of  capital  invested  in  the 
establishment  of  the  Homecroft  Reserve 
will  reclaim  and  fully  equip  an  acre  Home- 
croft with  a  Reservist  and  his  family  on 
it.  There  is  no  reason  why  the  capital 


364         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

necessary  for  that  should  be  provided 
from  current  revenues.  In  fact  it  should 
not  be  so  provided,  because  it  would  be 
invested  in  property  to  be  perpetually 
owned  by  the  national  government,  from 
which  future  generations  will  derive  an 
enormous  annual  revenue. 

A  fixed  average  valuation  of  one  thou- 
sand dollars  for  each  Homecroft  would 
be  more  than  enough  to  cover  the  cost  of 
reclamation,  preparation  for  occupancy, 
building  roads,  houses,  and  outbuildings, 
water  systems,  sanitation,  institutes  for 
instruction,  schools,  libraries,  —  in  fact 
everything  needed  to  be  done  to  make 
each  Homecroft  ready  for  occupancy  as  a 
productive  acre  garden  home,  with  a  com- 
plete community  organization.  It  would 
also  cover  the  cost  of  the  original  military 
equipment  of  the  Reservist  who  would 
occupy  the  Homecroft. 

Each  Reservist  would  pay  for  the  use  of 
the  Homecroft  and  for  educational  in- 
struction for  himself  and  family,  a  net 
annual  rental  of  $120,  being  twelve  per 
cent  on  the  fixed  capitalized  value  of  $1000 
placed  on  each  Homecroft.  Of  that  rental 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      365 

of  twelve  per  cent,  four  per  cent  would  be 
apportioned  to  interest,  and  two  per  cent 
to  create  a  sinking  fund  that  would  cover 
the  entire  principal  in  fifty  years.  The 
remaining  six  per  cent  would  cover  ex- 
penses of  operation  and  maintenance,  in- 
struction, and  all  other  expenses  connected 
with  the  Homecroft  Reserve  Establish- 
ment, including  military  expenditures. 
The  government  would  be  under  no  ex- 
pense whatsoever  for  the  maintenance  of 
this  Homecroft  Reserve  Establishment 
that  would  have  to  be  borne  out  of  the 
general  revenues,  not  even  for  field  ma- 
neuvers. There  would  be  no  expenses  of 
railway  transportation  to  those  maneu- 
vers. Every  regiment  would  march  to 
and  from  its  annual  encampment. 

One  hundred  and  twenty  dollars  a  year 
would  be  the  revenue  to  the  government 
from  one  Homecroft.  After  that  it  be- 
comes merely  a  question  of  multiplying 
units.  The  revenue  from  5,000,000  Home- 
crofts  would  be  $600,000,000  a  year.  As 
fast  as  the  capital  was  needed  for  invest- 
ment in  the  creation  and  establishment  of 
Homecroft  Reserve  Rural  Settlements,  it 


366         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

could  be  easily  secured  by  the  government. 
A  plan  that  would  insure  this  would  be 
the  adoption  of  a  financial  system  to  cover 
this  branch  of  the  operations  of  the 
Government  which  would  be  modeled 
after  the  French  Rentes  System.  Instead 
of  Government  Bonds,  as  they  are  now 
called,  Government  Homecrof  t  Certificates 
would  be  issued,  bearing  four  per  cent 
interest,  in  denominations  of  twenty-five 
dollars.  The  interest  on  each  certificate 
would  be  one  dollar  a  year.  If  such  cer- 
tificates were  available,  the  purse  strings 
of  the  people  would  be  opened  to  take  them 
as  readily  as  those  of  the  French  people 
were  opened  to  take  the  securities  issued 
by  the  French  Government  to  pay  the 
war  debt  of  a  billion  dollars  to  Germany 
after  the  Franco-Prussian  War. 

$500,000,000  a  year  of  these  certifi- 
cates could  be  issued  every  year  for  ten 
years.  That  would  complete  the  work  of 
creating  the  entire  Homecroft  Reserve 
Establishment  and  provide  the  capital  of 
$5,000,000,000  necessary  for  investment 
therein. 

Starting  from  that  point,  in  fifty  years 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      367 

thereafter  the  entire  investment  of 
$5,000,000,000  would  have  been  repaid 
with  all  current  interest,  and  the  govern- 
ment would  own  the  5,000,000  Home- 
crofts  free  and  clear  of  all  indebtedness 
or  financial  obligations  relating  thereto. 

Now  put  the  two  propositions  side  by 
side  and  look  at  them. 

An  increase  of  100,000  men  in  the 
Standing  Army  would  mean  in  fifty  years : 

1.  An   expense   of   $5,000,000,000   for 
maintenance. 

2.  An    economic     waste    of     another 
$5,000,000,000,  being  the  potential  labor 
value  of  the  100,000  men  who  would  be 
withdrawn  from  industry. 

The  Homecroft  Reserve  Establishment 
would  provide  a  military  force  of  5,000,000 
men  instead  of  100,000. 

It  would  provide  for  the  maintena/nce  of 
this  immense  force  during  the  fifty  years 
without  any  ultimate  cost  to  the  govern- 
ment. 

It  would  create  and  vest  in  the  govern- 
ment in  perpetual  ownership  property 
consisting  of  5,000,000  acre  Homecrofts 
worth  $1000  apiece,  —  a  total  property 


368         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

value  of  $5,000,000,000  which  would  be 
acquired  by  the  Government,  and  fully 
paid  for  from  the  Rental  Revenues  from 
the  property  during  the  fifty  year  period. 

It  would  thereafter  provide  from  those 
Rental  Revenues  an  annual  income  to  the 
government  of  six  per  cent  on  $5,000,000,- 
000  amounting  to  $300,000,000  a  year. 

The  potential  labor  value  of  the 
100,000  men  in  each  Homecroft  Reserve 
Corps  would  be  saved  and  transformed 
into  an  actual  productive  value  of  the 
$1000  which  each  would  annually  produce 
from  his  Homecroft.  The  productive 
labor  value  of  each  Corps  of  100,000 
Homecroft  Reservists  therefore  would 
amount  to  $5,000,000  in  fifty  years.  That 
is  the  same  amount  that  would  represent 
the  economic  w,aste  during  that  same 
period,  of  tjhie  potential  labor  value  of  the 
additional  force  of  100,000  men  which  it  is 
now  proposed  shall  be  added  to  the  regular 
army. 

The  economic  value  of  the  productive 
labor  of  the  entire  Homecroft  Reserve  of 
5,000,000  men  in  the  fifty  years  would 
be  fifty  times  $5,000,000,000. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      369 

And  in  order  to  save  the  enormous 
expense  and  waste  that  would  result  from 
increasing  the  standing  army,  and,  in 
addition,  to  achieve  the  stupendous  bene- 
fits that  would  result  from  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Homecroft  Reserve,  it  is  only 
necessary  that  the  same  common  sense 
business  methods  and  principles  should  be 
applied  to  the  operations  of  the  govern- 
ment that  any  large  corporation  would 
adopt  if  it  had  the  financial  resources  of 
the  United  States. 

Why  should  anyone  be  staggered  at  the 
proposition  for  the  establishment  of  the 
Homecroft  Reserve,  or  balk  at  it  because  it 
is  big? 

When  the  national  government  owns 
29,600,000  acres  of  national  forests  in  the 
drainage  basin  of  the  Colorado  River,  is 
there  any  reason  why  it  cannot  reclaim 
and  settle  in  one-acre  garden  homes,  the 
comparatively  small  area  of  1,000,000 
acres  which  is  only  a  part  of  what  it  owns 
in  the  main  valley  of  the  Colorado  River 
between  Needles  and  Yuma? 

If  it  can  do  that  in  the  Colorado  River 
Country  is  there  any  reason  why  it  should 


370         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

not  take  a  million  acres  of  land  in  north- 
ern Minnesota,  which  it  now  owns,  and 
reclaim  it  and  settle  it  in  one-acre  garden 
homes?  The  government  now  owns,  in 
addition  to  that  land,  987,000  acres  of 
national  forest  in  Minnesota. 

If  the  government  can  acquire  by  pur- 
chase, as  is  now  being  done,  another 
million  acres  of  forest  lands  in  the  Appa- 
lachian Mountains  under  the  Appalachian 
National  Forest  Act,  is  there  any  reason 
why  it  should  not  acquire  a  million  acres 
of  land  in  West  Virginia  and  irrigate  it 
and  subdivide  it  into  one-acre  garden 
homes,  and  put  Homecrofters  on  it  to 
intensively  cultivate  the  land? 

If  it  can  do  that  in  West  Virginia,  is 
there  any  reason  why  it  should  not  be 
done  in  Louisiana  or  in  the  Sacramento 
and  San  Joaquin  Valley  in  California? 

In  the  case  of  the  establishment  of  the 
Homecroft  Reserve  Rural  Settlements  the 
government  will  see  to  it,  itself,  that  its 
work  does  in  fact  result  in  actual  home 
making,  whereas  speculators  get  the  ulti- 
mate benefit  of  much  of  the  other  work 
that  it  does. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      371 

If  the  government  can  maintain  a  De- 
partment of  Agriculture  at  an  expense 
of  $20,000,000  in  one  year,  for  the  instruc- 
tion of  farmers  in  agriculture,  who  get  the 
benefit  of  that  service  without  paying  for 
it,  is  there  any  reason  why  it  should  not 
maintain  educational  institutions  to  train 
Homecroft  Reservists  in  Acreculture,  if 
they  pay  for  the  cost  of  that  instruction 
and  all  the  expenses  of  maintaining  the 
necessary  educational  institutions? 

If  the  government  can  enlist  men  in  the 
regular  army  for  national  defense  and  put 
them  in  camps  and  barracks  in  time  of 
peace  to  waste  their  time  in  idleness,  is 
there  any  reason  why  it  should  not  enlist 
men  in  a  Reserve  and  put  them  in  Home- 
crofts,  where  their  labor  will  be  utilized 
in  production,  and  the  elevating  influence 
of  family  and  community  life,  be  sub- 
stituted for  the  demoralizing  influences  of 
the  life  of  the  camp  or  barracks? 

There  is  no  more  reason  why  the  govern- 
ment should  not  build  and  perpetually 
own  the  Homecrofts  used  for  this  national 
purpose  of  education  and  defense  than 
there  is  that  it  should  not  own  the  Military 


372         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

Academy  at  West  Point  or  the  Naval 
Academy  at  Annapolis,  or  any  land  used 
by  the  Agricultural  Department  for  any 
of  its  work,  which  is  educational,  or  by 
the  War  Department,  which  is  for  national 
defense.  The  Homecrofts  used  to  train 
and  maintain  in  the  service  the  Homecroft 
Reserves  would  be  used  for  a  combination 
of  both  purposes,  and  their  cost  would  be 
just  as  properly  classified  as  an  expendi- 
ture for  national  defense  as  the  cost  of 
any  existing  camp,  barracks,  or  army  post 
now  owned  by  the  government. 

The  burden  of  the  Standing  Army  of 
less  than  100,000  men  now  maintained 
by  the  United  States  could  be  very  con- 
siderably reduced  by  establishing  as  large 
a  portion  of  it  as  possible  in  the  Homecroft 
System,  were  it  not  for  the  false  ideals  as 
to  human  values  that  are  apparently  so 
deeply  imbedded  in  the  minds  of  the  mili- 
tary caste. 

The  entire  Homecroft  Reserve  System 
should  be  organized  as  a  separate  depart- 
ment of  the  national  government  like  the 
Forest  Service  or  Reclamation  Service,  and 
should  be  known  as  the  Homecroft  Service. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      373 

The  Homecroft  Reserve  in  Minnesota 
should  be  known  as  the  Department  of 
the  Reserves  of  the  North;  the  Reserve 
in  Louisiana  as  the  Department  of  the 
Reserves  of  the  South;  the  Reserve  in 
West  Virginia  as  the  Department  of  the 
Reserves  of  the  East;  the  Reserve  in  the 
Colorado  Valley  and  Nevada  as  the  De- 
partment of  the  Reserves  of  the  West; 
and  the  Reserve  in  the  Sacramento  and 
San  Joaquin  Valleys  in  California  as  the 
Department  of  the  Reserves  of  the  Pacific. 

The  Louisiana  Reservists  would  be 
trained  as  Homecrofters  and  sailors;  the 
West  Virginia  and  Minnesota  Reservists 
would  be  trained  as  Homecrofters  and 
Foresters;  the  Colorado  River  and  Cali- 
fornia Reservists  would  be  trained  as 
Homecrofters  and  Irrigators  —  Conquer- 
ors of  the  Desert;  the  Nevada  Reservists 
would  be  trained  as  Homecrofters  and 
Cavalrymen,  —  the  Cossack  Cavalry  of 
America,  —  and  all  would  be  good  sol- 
diers, as  well  as  the  very  highest  type  of 
good  citizens. 

During  the  entire  two  months  devoted 
to  the  regular  annual  march,  encampment, 


374 


OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      375 

and  field  maneuvers,  the  members  of  the 
Homecroft  Reserve  would  be  under  the 
military  control  and  direction  of  the  War 
Department,  exactly  as  they  would  be  in 
times  of  actual  warfare.  During  the 
remaining  ten  months  they  would  be 
under  the  civil  jurisdiction  of  the  Home- 
croft  Service. 

One  of  the  insuperable  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  efficient  national  defense  by  State 
Militia  is  the  impossibility  of  rapid  mobi- 
lization, and  the  practical  certainty  that 
in  case  of  actual  war  none  of  the  States 
on  the  coast  of  the  Atlantic  or  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico  would  permit  their  State  Militia 
to  be  diverted  from  the  protection  of 
their  own  State.  This  would  leave  the 
great  seaboard  cities  like  Boston,  New 
York,  and  Philadelphia,  or  cities  located 
near  the  Atlantic  Coast  like  Baltimore 
and  Washington,  without  an  adequate 
force  for  their  protection  in  case  of  war. 

One  of  the  chief  reasons  for  concentrat- 
ing a  million  of  the  Homecroft  Reserves 
in  one  State  would  be  to  facilitate  the  es- 
tablishment of  a  perfect  military  organi- 
zation on  a  large  scale  as  is  required  by 


376         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

modern  warfare;  and  to  avoid  delay  in 
mobilization  and  expense  for  transporta- 
tion to  annual  encampments  and  field 
maneuvers.  The  Homecroft  Reserve  plan 
contemplates  that  there  shall  be  no  ex- 
penditure for  railroad  transportation  ex- 
cept in  the  event  of  actual  warfare.  The 
Reserves  in  California  and  in  the  Colorado 
River  Valley  would  be  marched  with  their 
full  equipment  to  one  great  concentration 
camp  in  Nevada  for  their  annual  en- 
campment and  for  field  maneuvers.  The 
whole  military  organization,  officers,  aux- 
iliaries, and  military  machinery,  for  an 
army  of  two  million  men  would  thus  be 
given  actual  training  every  year  in  the 
complicated  work  of  handling  a  great 
army  in  the  field.  That  would  not  be 
possible  if  they  were  scattered  over  the 
United  States  from  Dan  to  Beersheba,  in 
little  bunches  of  one  company  here  and 
another  there. 

Annual  encampments  for  field  maneu- 
vers for  the  other  sections  of  the  reserve 
should  be  established  at  least  400  miles 
distant  from  their  regular  permanent 
Homecroft  Reserve  Rural  Settlements. 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      377 

The  Roman  soldiers  were  trained  to 
march  twenty  miles  in  six  hours  and  carry 
their  heavy  equipment.  The  Emperor 
Septimius  Severus  marched  at  the  head  of 
his  army  on  foot  and  in  complete  armor 
for  eight  hundred  miles  from  the  Danube 
to  Rome  in  forty  days  —  twenty  miles  a 
day.  Such  a  march,  once  every  year, 
should  be  a  part  of  the  training  of  every 
soldier  in  the  Homecroft  Reserve. 

There  would  be  no  difficulty  in  finding 
places  in  Texas  adapted  for  the  field 
maneuvers  of  the  1,000,000  men  com- 
prising the  Homecroft  Reserve  in  Louisi- 
ana, and  the  annual  encampment  of  those 
in  Minnesota  could  be  located  in  Mon- 
tana. 

In  West  Virginia  the  country  is  moun- 
tainous and  smaller  units  of  organization 
would  be  more  easily  adapted  to  that  State, 
as  in  Switzerland.  In  West  Virginia  the 
government  would  not  acquire  its  entire 
million  acres  in  one  body.  It  would  be 
scattered  into  many  different  sections  of 
the  State,  in  practically  every  valley, 
but  more  particularly  in  the  rolling  coun- 
try lying  between  the  mountains  and  the 


378         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

Ohio  River,  which  stretches  all  the  way 
from  Wheeling  to  Huntington  in  West 
Virginia.  If  it  were  desirable  to  concen- 
trate the  entire  million  men  in  one  annual 
concentration  camp,  the  best  location  for 
it  would  be  in  the  northern  part  of  the 
peninsula  of  Michigan. 

There  are  many  reasons  why  West  Vir- 
ginia should  be  chosen  for  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Homecroft  Reserve  for  the 
eastern  section  of  the  United  States.  Its 
chief  advantage  is  its  central  location, 
almost  equi-distant  between  Maine  and 
Florida  and  within  marching  distance 
from  any  point  on  the  Atlantic  sea- 
board, the  Mississippi  River,  or  the  Great 
Lakes. 

Switzerland  could  be  reproduced  in 
West  Virginia,  with  the  climatic  and 
physical  conditions  of  the  two  countries 
so  much  alike.  The  Swiss  Military  Sys- 
tem could  be  applied  to  the  entire  State. 
With  a  million  regularly  enlisted  Home- 
croft  Reservists  at  all  times  ready  for 
service,  there  would  then  be  in  addition 
a  large  unorganized  reserve  composed  of 
graduates  from  the  Homecroft  Reserves 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      379 

or  who  had  received  a  military  training  in 
the  public  schools.  It  would  be  entirely 
practicable  to  engraft  the  entire  Swiss 
system  of  universal  military  training  in 
the  public  schools  on  the  school  system 
of  the  State  of  West  Virginia. 

Switzerland  has  a  total  area  of  15,975 
square  miles  with  a  population  of  3,741,- 
971.  West  Virginia  has  an  area  of  24,170 
square  miles  and  a  population  of  1,221,119. 
The  addition  of  1,000,000  Homecroft 
Reservists  to  its  population  with  their 
families,  would  bring  the  total  population 
up  to  nearly  twice  that  of  Switzerland. 
The  marvelous  adaptability  of  West  Vir- 
ginia to  the  Homecroft  idea  and  its  pos- 
sibilities as  a  fruit  and  vegetable  and 
poultry  producing  country  were  fully  set 
forth  in  an  article  in  the  "National  Maga- 
zine" for  December,  1913,  which  has  been 
reprinted  under  its  title,  "West  Virginia, 
the  Land  Overlooked,"  in  a  pamphlet 
issued  by  the  Department  of  Agriculture 
of  the  State  of  West  Virginia. 

The  following  pertinent  statements  are 
made  in  that  article:  "Fifty  years  of 
amazing  progress  in  West  Virginia  gives  a 


380         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

new  significance  to  her  motto,  'Montani 
semper  liberi/  meaning  'Mountaineers 
always  freemen.'  There  is  something  in 
the  environment  and  in  the  rugged  scenery 
of  the  State  that  gives  its  people  the  free- 
dom loving  spirit  of  the  Swiss."  The 
"strategic  importance"  of  the  State  is 
shown  in  these  words:  "A  circle  with  a 
radius  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
makes  West  Virginia  the  center  of  all  the 
markets  laved  by  the  waters  of  the  At- 
lantic and  the  great  lakes  on  the  north. 
Within  this  circle  is  located  the  capital  of 
the  nation  and  twelve  of  the  world's 
greatest  cities." 

With  these  facts  in  mind,  anyone  who 
will  look  at  a  map  of  the  eastern  half  of 
the  United  States  will  agree  that  West 
Virginia  is  the  right  State  in  which  to 
rear  and  train  and  concentrate  the  Reserve 
Force  required  for  the  defense  of  the  east 
and  the  Atlantic  seaboard. 

The  northern  half  of  the  State  of  Minne- 
sota affords  perhaps  the  most  perfect 
adaptability  of  any  section  of  the  United 
States  to  the  plan  for  a  Homecroft  Re- 
serve of  one  million  men  to  be  located 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE        381 

there.  The  national  government  now  owns 
more  than  a  million  acres  of  land  that 
could  be  reclaimed  for  this  purpose.  The 
national  government  also  owns  national 
forests  in  the  State  of  Minnesota  aggre- 
gating close  to  a  niillion  acres.  The  land 
needed  for  the  1,000,000  Homecrofts  could 
be  selected  from  land  already  owned  by 
the  government,  or  other  lands  could  be 
acquired.  That  country  is  the  original 
Homecroft  section  in  the  United  States. 
The  people  of  Duluth  have  tried  it  out 
and  found  it  good.  Anyone  who  wants 
proof  of  the  possibilities  of  acre  produc- 
tion needs  only  to  go  to  Duluth  and  make 
some  investigations  there.  He  will  find 
unquestionable  records  of  acreage  pro- 
duction of  vegetables,  running  all  the  way 
from  $1000  to  $4000  an  acre  in  one  year. 

The  population  of  the  United  States  is 
out  of  balance  —  too  many  consumers 
in  cities  —  too  few  producers  in  the 
country  —  with  a  steadily  increasing  food 
shortage  and  higher  cost  of  living  in  con- 
sequence. The  annual  production  of  food 
from  the  5,000,000  acres  owned  by  the 
national  government,  and  intensively  cul- 


382         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

tivated  by  the  Homecroft  Reserve,  would 
tend  largely  to  reduce  the  cost  of  living. 
It  would  aggregate  more  than  half  the 
value  of  the  entire  annual  production  from 
all  the  farms  of  the  United  States  to-day. 

That  would,  however,  be  but  a  small 
part  of  the  stupendous  enlargement  of 
the  economic  power  of  the  United  States 
that  would  result  from  the  work  that 
would  be  done  by  the  National  Construc- 
tion Corps  to  increase  the  area  available 
for  food  production,  and  enlarge  the  pro- 
ductiveness of  lands  already  under  culti- 
vation. The  great  works  that  would  be 
built  by  the  Construction  Corps  of  the 
Reclamation  Service  would  accomplish : 

(a)  The  utilization  of  the  waters  of 
eastern  streams  for  increasing  the  annual 
production  of  between  150  and  200 
million  acres  by  supplemental  irrigation 
in  the  humid  and  sub-humid  sections  of 
the  country; 

(6)  The  reclamation  by  irrigation  of  at 
least  75  million  acres  of  land  now  desert 
in  the  western  part  of  the  United  States; 

(c)  The  reclamation  by  drainage  or 
protection  from  overflow  of  75  million 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      383 

acres  of  swamp  and  overflow  lands  situ- 
ated largely  in  the  eastern  and  southern 
states. 

A  total  of  150  million  acres  of  worthless 
deserts  and  swamps  would  be  reclaimed 
and  devoted  to  food  production.  That 
would  be  equivalent  to  the  actual  creation 
of  an  area  of  that  enormous  extent  of  new 
lands  where  none  had  been  before,  and 
these  new  lands  would  be  the  most  fertile 
and  highly  productive  of  any  lands  in  the 
United  States.  If  the  annual  gross  pro- 
duction of  the  150  million  acres  of  re- 
claimed deserts  and  swamps  were  put  at 
only  $60  an  acre,  which  is  a  low  estimate, 
it  would  amount  to  $9,000,000,000  a  year, 
and  the  world  needs  the  food.  The  value 
of  all  the  wealth  produced  on  farms  in 
the  United  States  in  1910  was  estimated 
by  the  Secretary  of  Agriculture  to  have 
been  $8,926,000,000. 

The  application  of  supplemental  irriga- 
tion to  lands  in  the  United  States  already 
under  cultivation  by  rainfall,  as  is  done 
upon  large  areas  in  France,  Spain  and 
Italy,  would  double  or  treble  the  produc- 
tion of  farm  crops  on  such  lands.  And  if 


384         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

100,000,000  acres  of  those  lands  were 
intensively  cultivated  and  fertilized,  as  is 
now  done  on  much  of  the  land  devoted  to 
truck-gardening  on  the  Atlantic  coast,  the 
gross  food  production  from  every  acre 
intensively  tilled  in  that  way  can  be  in- 
creased more  than  $1,000  a  year.  That 
would  mean  an  increase  in  the  food 
supplies  of  the  United  States  aggregating 
an  annual  total  of  one  hundred  billion 
dollars  a  year. 

These  figures  look  so  large  as  to  seem 
visionary  to  those  who  are  uninformed  as 
to  the  facts,  but  it  is  only  a  question  of 
multiplying  units  of  from  one  to  five 
acres  into  which  the  land  would  be  sub- 
divided for  tillage  by  Homecrofters.  With 
a  population  of  100,000,000  to  feed  now, 
and  the  practical  certainty  that  it  will  be 
200,000,000  in  another  fifty  years,  and 
400,000,000  within  a  century,  shall  we 
hesitate  to  train  the  Homecrofters  who 
would  each  produce  a  gross  yield  of  more 
than  $1,000  from  every  acre  to  feed  our 
multiplying  millions? 

If  we  do  not  train  millions  of  our  people 
to  be  Homecrofters  and  intensive  soil-cultiva- 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      385 

tors,  how  are  we  going  to  feed  our  population 
when  it  reaches  200,000,000  or  400,000,000? 

All  we  need  to  do,  to  be  sure  of  having 
at  least  100,000,000  Homecrofters,  each 
producing  $1,000  worth  of  food  from  a 
one-acre-garden  home  or  Homecraft,  when 
our  population  has  grown  to  400,000,000 
within  a  century,  is  to  graduate  1,000,000 
Homecrofters  every  year  from  the  Home- 
croft  Reserve  Educational  System  as  is  in 
this  book  advocated  and  shown  to  be 
entirely  practicable. 

Forestry  also  should  be  borne  in  mind 
in  measuring  the  enlargement  of  the 
nation's  economic  power  through  the 
work  of  the  National  Construction  Re- 
serve, not  only  the  perpetuation  of  present 
forests,  but  the  establishment  of  new 
forest  plantations  by  planting  trees.  The 
forestry  resources  of  the  nation  should  be 
administered  and  developed  on  a  business 
basis.  Forests  should  be  planted  on  every 
acre  of  land  better  adapted  to  forestry 
than  to  agriculture.  Forest  plantations 
should  be  established  and  maintained  near 
every  city  or  town  that  would  cooperate 
by  maintaining  a  Forestry  and  Home- 


386         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

croft  School  as  an  adjunct  to  the  forest 
plantation  established  by  the  national 
government. 

The  value  of  matured  forests  should  be 
carefully  estimated,  and  the  length  of 
time  required  to  bring  them  to  maturity. 
Forestry  Construction  Bonds  should  be 
issued  to  cover  the  cost  of  the  work  of 
the  Construction  Corps  of  the  Forest 
Service.  They  should  be  100  year  bonds, 
issued  under  a  plan  that  would  carefully 
estimate  the  income  that  would  be  de- 
rived from  the  forests  after  they  had 
attained  to  maturity.  The  first  fifty 
years  should  be  allowed  for  the  period 
of  growth,  during  which  only  the  interest 
on  the  bonds  should  be  payable.  The 
second  fifty  year  period  should  be  the 
period  of  liquidation,  during  which  a 
sinking  fund  would  be  accumulated  from 
sales  of  wood  and  timber  sufficient  to 
cover  the  entire  principal  of  the  bonds, 
in  addition  to  the  amount  paid  for  interest 
thereon  during  the  full  term  of  one  hun- 
dred years  through  which  the  bond  would 
run.  The  generations  of  the  future,  who 
would  derive  the  benefit  from  the  work  of 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      387 

this  generation,  would  provide  for  the 
payment  of  the  debt  from  the  income 
from  the  forest  resources  which  had  been 
created  for  their  benefit  and  bequeathed 
to  them  by  this  generation.  A  hundred 
years  is  none  too  far  ahead  to  plan  in 
formulating  a  great  national  forestry 
policy  for  such  a  nation  as  the  United 
States.  The  adoption  of  the  policy  of 
developing  this  branch  of  the  country's 
resources  and  economic  power  by  a 
Forestry  Bond  Issue  relieves  the  plan 
of  any  difficulty  that  might  otherwise 
arise  if  the  expenditures  had  to  be  met 
from  current  revenues.  There  is  no  right 
reason  why  this  generation  should  bear 
the  entire  burden  of  planting  what  future 
generations  will  harvest.  This  generation 
would  get  a  large  benefit,  but  the  benefits 
to  future  generations  would  be  far  greater. 
They  would  inherit  the  vast  resources  of 
wood  and  timber  which  would  be  created 
by  the  wise  forethought  of  the  present 
generation. 

Whenever  this  country  has  put  itself 
on  the  economic  basis  that  will  be  estab- 
lished by  the  adoption  of  the  National 


388         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

Construction  Reserve  and  Homecraft  Re- 
serve System,  and  maintains  without  ulti- 
mate cost  to  the  government  a  system 
that  insures  to  the  United  States  greater 
military  strength  than  that  of  any  other 
nation,  the  economic  currents  and  mani- 
fest benefits  to  the  people  created  by  that 
condition  will  force  all  other  nations  to 
abandon  their  systems  of  enormously  ex- 
pensive standing  armies  and  armaments. 

The  final  power  that  must  be  relied  on 
to  ultimately  make  an  end  of  war  is  the 
drift  of  economic  forces  —  a  power  as 
irresistible  as  the  onward  flow  of  the 
Gulf  Stream  or  the  Japan  Current.  The 
universal  adoption  of  the  Homecroft  Sys- 
tem of  Education  and  Life  that  would 
eventually  be  brought  about  by  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  Homecroft  Reserve 
would  vest  in  the  United  States  an  eco- 
nomic power  that  no  other  nation  could 
stand  against,  unless  it  adopted  a  similar 
system.  We  would  have  the  economic 
strength  that  China  has  to-day,  supple- 
mented by  all  the  advantages  of  national 
organization  and  modern  science  and  ma- 
chinery. After  generations  of  following 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      389 

after  false  gods,  we  would  have  abandoned 
the  fallacious  teachings  of  Adam  Smith 
and  returned  to  the  sound  principles  of 
national  and  human  life  laid  down  in 
"Fields,  Factories  and  Workshops,"  by 
Prince  Kropotkin. 

Kropotkin  calls  attention  to  the  fact 
that  in  Great  Britain  alone  the  area  under 
cultivation  was  decreased  in  the  last  fifty 
years  more  than  five  million  acres.  That 
land  was  once  cultivated  by  human  labor. 
The  hardy  yeomanry  who  tilled  it  have 
been  forced  into  the  congested  cities  or 
have  emigrated  to  other  lands,  and  the 
five  million  citizen  soldiers  that  England 
might  have  had  on  those  five  million  acres 
were  not  there  when  the  day  of  her  great 
need  came. 

England  is  now  paying  the  penalty  of 
her  adherence  to  the  political  economy  of 
Adam  Smith  instead  of  to  that  of  Kropot- 
kin. She  has  pursued  a  national  policy 
that  counts  national  wealth  in  dollars 
instead  of  in  men. 

Let  us  learn  a  lesson  from  England's 
mistakes,  the  mistakes  which  have  brought 
upon  her  such  an  appalling  calamity. 


390         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

If  the  5,000,000  acres  that  have  been 
thrown  out  of  cultivation  in  England  in 
the  last  fifty  years  were  now  settled  with 
5,000,000  Homecroft  Reservists,  under  the 
plan  proposed  for  adoption  in  the  United 
States,  those  Homecrofters  could  pay  off 
the  national  debt  of  Great  Britain  in  just 
two  years  and  live  comfortably  the  mean- 
while. A  total  net  annual  production  of 
only  $500  an  acre,  multiplied  by  the  labor 
of  5,000,000  men  for  one  year,  would 
amount  to  $2,500,000,000.  That  would  be 
enough  to  pay  off  the  national  debt  of 
France  in  less  than  three  years,  and  of 
Russia  in  less  than  two  years.  It  would 
pay  off  the  entire  war  debt  of  the  world  in 
twenty  years.  That  gives  some  idea  of 
the  economic  strength  of  a  Homecroft 
nation,  such  as  we  must  create  in  the 
United  States  of  America.  The  possibili- 
ties of  acreage  production  are  steadily  in- 
creasing as  our  scientific  knowledge  of  the 
mysteries  of  plant  growth  and  methods  of 
fertilization  advances. 

The  United  States  is  now  at  the  forks 
of  the  road.  Certain  destruction  is  our 
fate  if  we  continue  the  drift  away  from 


THE  PATRIOTISM  OF  PEACE      391 

the  land  into  the  congested  cities.  If, 
instead  of  that,  we  become  a  nation  of 
Homecrofters,  no  dream  can  picture  the 
future  strength  of  this  country  or  the 
human  advancement  that  its  people  will 
accomplish,  to  say  nothing  of  the  produc- 
tion of  national  wealth  so  great  as  to  be 
practically  inconceivable. 

In  the  future  the  power  of  the  nations 
of  the  world  will  be  in  proportion  to  the 
wise  use  they  make  of  their  productive 
resources,  and  the  extent  to  which  they 
provide  opportunities  for  acreculture  and 
create  Homecroft  Rural  Settlements  in- 
stead of  crowding  humanity  into  congested 
cities  where  they  become  consumers  and 
cease  to  be  producers  of  food. 

If  the  present  war  has  proved  anything 
it  has  proved  that  the  one  thing  above 
all  others  which  insures  the  national  de- 
fense is  trained  and  seasoned  men,  —  and 
enough  of  them  to  overwhelm  any  invading 
enemy  by  the  sheer  force  and  weight  of 
innumerable  battalions.  In  all  the  future 
years  the  fundamental  military  strength 
of  every  nation  is  going  to  be  measured  by 
the  number  of  such  men  that  she  has  im- 


392         OUR  NATIONAL  DEFENSE 

mediately   available   for   instant   service, 
with  adequate  arms  and  equipment. 

The  establishment  of  a  Homecroft  Re- 
serve by  the  United  States  of  America 
will  make  of  this  nation  a  living  demon- 
stration of  the  truth  of  those  immortal 
words  of  Henry  W.  Grady: 

"  The  citizen  standing  in  the  doorway  of  his 
home  —  contented  on  his  threshold  —  his  family 
gathered  about  his  hearthstone  —  while  the  even- 
ing of  a  well  spent  day  closes  in  scenes  and 
sounds  that  are  dearest  —  he  shall  save  the 
republic  when  the  drum  tap  is  futile  and  the 
barracks  are  exhausted" 


THE  SECRET 
OF  NIPPON'S  POWER 

THE  FIRST  BOOK 

OF  THE 

HOMECROFTERS 

CONTAINS 
WE  DARE  NOT  FAIL 
THE  BROTHERHOOD  OF  MAN  —  Poem 
CHARITY  —  Poem 
CHARITY  THAT  is  EVERLASTING 
THE  SECRET  OF  NIPPON'S  POWER 
COMMERCIAL  COMPETITION  OF  JAPAN 
A  WARNING  FROM  ENGLAND 
THE  MAN  BEHIND  THE  MACHINE 
EDUCATION  FOR  EFFICIENCY 
THE  GARDEN  SCHOOL  is  THE  OPEN  SESAME 
THE  LESSON  OF  A  GREAT  CALAMITY 
OUR  MOTTO  —  "DROIT  AU  TRAVAIL" 
THE  SIGN  OF  A  THOUGHT — THE  SWASTIKA 
THE  CREED  AND  PLATFORM  OF  THE  HOMECROFTERS 
"HOMECROFT" — THE  MAKING  OF  A  WORD 

PRICE  $1.25 
Including  Postage 

May  be  ordered  by  mail  from 
RURAL  SETTLEMENTS  ASSOCIATION 

COTTON  EXCHANGE  BUILDING,  NEW  ORLEANS,  LA. 


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